A Crown for Assassins

“As you say, Father,” Henry said.

His father gave Henry an angry look. “Honestly, I have raised a vapid shell of a man in you. Not like your cousin.”

“Now, my love…” his mother began, but in the halfhearted way she usually did.

“Well, it’s true,” his father snapped, pacing before the fireplace like a guard before a castle gate. Not that a man as important as Sir Hubert would have appreciated the comparison. “The boy can’t stick with anything. How many tutors did he go through as a child? Then there was the commission with that military company I had to buy him out of, and the business with joining the Church of the Masked Goddess…”

Henry didn’t bother pointing out that all of that had been down to his parents. There had been so many tutors because his father had a habit of firing them whenever they taught anything he didn’t agree with, so that Henry had mostly educated himself in the house’s library. Equally, his father had been the one to decide that a commission in a free company was no place for his son, while the business with the church had even been the old man’s idea, until he learned that it would mean that Henry would never be able to give the family the heirs it required.

“You’re daydreaming again,” his father snapped. “Your cousin wouldn’t be. She made something of her life. She married a king!”

“And almost married a prince twice over,” Henry said, not able to stop himself.

He saw his father go white with anger. Henry knew that expression, and knew what it portended. So many times when he was growing up, he’d seen that expression and had to stand there, not flinching at the slaps or the switching that had come next. He steeled himself to do the same today.

Instead, as his father lashed out, Henry found his hand moving up almost automatically to catch the arm, squeezing hard enough to bruise as he held his father’s wrist in place, looking at him evenly. He stepped back, letting his father’s arm drop.

Sir Hubert rubbed his wrist. “I want you to leave my house! You are not welcome here anymore!”

“I think you’re right,” Henry said. “I should go. Please excuse me.”

He felt oddly calm as he left the room, heading upstairs to the room he’d had since he was a child. There, he started to collect things together, working out what he would need, and what he would have to do next.

Henry only had only known his cousin a little when she was alive. There were those who said that with his golden hair, deep blue eyes, and handsome features he actually looked a little like her, but Henry had never been able to see it. Perhaps it was just that Angelica had always been the standard against which he had been found wanting. She was more intelligent, or able to get on with people better, or more successful at court.

Henry wasn’t sure that any of those things were true. Typically, before his father had been rid of them, his tutors had been surprised by how quickly Henry learned, and he’d always had a knack for getting people to do what he needed. His lack of success at court had mostly come from a lack of interest.

“That will have to change,” Henry said to himself.

He had heard the rumors about his cousin, but he had also been clever enough to seek out his own information, paying men for what they knew and drinking with travelers at the local inn. From what he could understand, his cousin had been put aside not once, but twice, by Sebastian, the son who was rumored to have murdered his mother. Angelica had then sided with Rupert, probably to make sure that she got to the throne, only to find that Sophia Danse’s invasion turned anyone connected with the ruling family into a target.

“And it got her killed,” Henry muttered as he fetched clothes and money, pistols and his old dueling rapier.

He had no doubt that Angelica had engaged in plenty of nefarious practices to get where she’d ended up. A part of Henry wished that he didn’t understand how these things worked, but he did, and even someone like her didn’t rise to be queen by accident. She’d always been quick to cheat or lie in games as a child, whenever it seemed it would gain her an advantage.

Yet the things the rumors accused her of… those sounded more like someone’s revision of history to make themselves sound innocent. They were an excuse to have her killed, clearing the way for power.

If he were like his father, Henry would rage in impotent anger at that. If he were like his mother, he would break down at the horror of it while simultaneously spreading gossip. He wasn’t like either of them, though. He was a man who did what was needed, and he needed to do this.

“The family honor will allow no less,” Henry said, standing and hefting his bag.

He walked downstairs, pausing at the door to the drawing room.

“Mother, Father, I will be leaving now. I will not be returning. You should know that I will avenge my cousin’s death, whatever it takes. I am not doing that so that you will be proud of me, because frankly I don’t care what you think. I am doing it because it needs to be done. Farewell.”

As goodbyes went, it was singularly unemotional, but Henry found that he had nothing better for them as he stalked from the house, ignoring his mother’s wailing and his father’s angry stares.

He went around to the stable, selecting the fine chestnut mare he always rode, along with a brindled horse to carry his pack. He started to saddle them, knowing every step of it by heart. Already, his mind was past thoughts of his parents, concentrating on the things that he would need to do in the days to come, the alliances he would have to make, the fights that he would have to win with words and gold and steel.

Was their new queen truly one of the Danses? It was possible, given the rumors, but even if she were, that would not give her the right to take the throne. That had fallen to Rupert, and Angelica through him. Since the only remaining member of the Flambergs was almost certainly guilty of treason, that meant…

“Yes,” Henry said, with a rueful smile at how easily it had come to him, “that might work.”

It wasn’t that he wanted to do this. He didn’t need a throne any more than he’d wanted the priestly occupation his parents had tried to foist on him. It was simply a necessary component of what was to come. Charge into Ashton and attempt to kill the queen, and he would be no more than a traitor.

Yet he couldn’t allow the invaders from Ishjemme to go unpunished. At a stroke, they had undone all the careful work constructed following the civil wars. They had undone the old order and instituted a new one where the Assembly of Nobles was rearranged at the ruler’s whim, and where his cousin could be executed on no more than the word of the queen.

Henry would not stand for that. He could make things as they were again. He could make them right.

With that in mind, he set off riding. He would need support for this, and thankfully, Henry knew exactly where to find it.

CHAPTER NINE

A week didn’t seem like enough time to Sophia. Not enough time to spend with her husband. Not enough time to dote over Violet, who cooed up at her whenever Sophia held her, and who reached out for Sienne’s fur whenever the forest cat came close.

“We don’t have to go so soon if you don’t want,” Lucas said, as they stood at the docks, people crowding around them to see them off as they waited before the ship that was to carry them. High Merchant N’Ka waited aboard, smiling down, probably because of the chests of goods and promises of trade Sophia had given him.

“Or we could go,” Kate said. “We could bring our parents back to you.”

Sophia shook her head. “I know it seems mad doing it so soon, and it hurts more than I can say leaving Violet behind, but I feel as though, if we’re going to find our parents, it needs to be the three of us. They made sure that the map only came together for all three of us for a reason.”

“It doesn’t have to be now, though,” Lucas said.

“If not now, when?” Sophia asked. “We have peace for a while. Sebastian can hold the kingdom together, and I’m not caught up in all the details of ruling yet. If I leave it too long, I might never do it.”

Plus, I’ve seen how much waiting has disappointed you, she sent. I want you to be happy, and I want Violet to have her grandparents.

I’m sure they will dote on her, Lucas sent back. And we will find them.

Sophia clung to that certainty as she went over to the spot where Sebastian stood with their daughter. She could sense that he was trying to be strong for her, that he wished she wasn’t going, or that he was. She kissed him tenderly.

“I won’t be gone so long,” she said.

“Every moment will feel like too long,” Sebastian replied. “And it is a long way to go that far south.”

“The high merchant is sure that the journey to the coast won’t take more than a week or two,” Sophia said, hoping that he was right. “After that, the journey into the interior might take another week, two at most. I will be back to you before you know it, along with Violet’s grandparents, if they’re there to find.”

“Two months will feel like an eternity,” Sebastian said. He ran her hand through her hair. “But I know how happy it will make you to finally find your parents. I’d go with you if I could.”

Sophia knew he would, and the idea of their whole family trekking to find her parents was one that made her ache with longing, even though she knew that it couldn’t happen.

“One of us has to stay here to run things,” she said.

“I just wish I could make sure you’re safe,” Sebastian said.

Sophia looked around at the ship, where a mixture of servants and Ishjemme’s soldiers were finding space on the deck. “I have half a regiment with me, along with Sienne, Lucas, and Kate. I think I should be the one worried about you without us to look after you.”

“I’ll do my best not to get imprisoned by anyone again,” Sebastian promised with a smile that Sophia returned.

“I love you so much,” she said, kissing him once more. She leaned down to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “And I love you too. When you’re older, we’ll tell you the story of how we went to find your grandparents so that they could see you.”

There were so many things that she was leaving behind in the kingdom. Her daughter and her husband were the most obvious among them, but there were so many others as well. Her cousins were here, Hans working on the treasury, Ulf and Frig on the Monthys estate, Jan… well, she hadn’t seen him since her wedding day, but she hoped that he was all right.

The various factions in the kingdom seemed to be settled for the moment. The Church of the Masked Goddess and the Assembly seemed to be quiet for the moment, while the progress for the people who had been downtrodden under the Dowager had already begun. More than that, Sophia trusted Sebastian. If anyone could run things here while she was gone, he could. The nobles and the people all respected him, while he probably knew the business of government a lot better than she did.

Even so, letting go of him and Violet was the hardest thing she had done.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised. “I’ll learn how to call up the wind to push the boat faster if I have to. I won’t let anything separate us any longer than it has to.”

“And when you get back, you’ll have stories to tell,” Sebastian said with a smile that Sophia could see he didn’t feel. He was being brave for her, but sometimes brave was enough.

“Come on, Sienne,” she said.

She forced herself to make her way up the gangplank, standing on the deck while the crowd on the dock cheered and waved. It was the kind of moment that should have felt like an epic beginning. Instead, she found herself hoping that they would be able to find her parents and get back here as quickly as possible.

***

Kate was having a hard time letting go of Will.

“I wish you could come with me,” she said.

“I could if you wanted,” he suggested.

Kate shook her head. “I want to have something good to come back to, and you definitely count as something good.”

Just the thought of that had her thinking of all the nights since the wedding, all the joyous times they’d spent in the few days they’d had since their wedding. It had her thinking of all the close moments that they’d spent together, the small touches, the laughter…

“You have to stay,” Kate said, trying to convince herself as much as Will. “Sebastian is going to need all the help that he can get, and Lord Cranston will need you for an aide.”

“I don’t know if there will be much for a free company to do,” Will said.

Kate shook her head, took his hand, and led him over to where Lord Cranston was waiting. Kate snapped off a salute.

“Since you’re the head of the army now, I suspect that I should be saluting you,” Lord Cranston said.

“Why do you think I’m saluting you, my lord?” Kate replied with a grin.

Lord Cranston looked at her in something like shock. “What exactly are you saying, Kate?”

“That someone must make sure that the kingdom is safe,” Kate said. “And I don’t trust anyone to make sure that the army stays on Sebastian’s side more than you.”

“Even though I am variously old, mercenary, drunken, capricious, and inclined to switch sides?” Lord Cranston said. Kate guessed that he wasn’t entirely joking.

“You have never gone back on your word that I know of,” she said. “As for the rest of it… well, I wouldn’t want you any other way. The army is in your charge, my lord.”

“And when I decide that our neighbors pay better?” Lord Cranston said.

“Then you’ll back Sebastian anyway,” Kate replied. She held out her hand. “Pretend all you want, but we both know you’d rather die than go back on your honor.”

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