The Bandit King by Lilith Saintcrow

Tiberia’s fracturing principalities
and
Navarre’s glory-hungry Queen Ysabeau I and her cursed Consort to take bites from the apple of Arquitaine. Not to mention Arquitaine’s own nobles seeking to displace or marry the widowed Queen Jeliane. Di Halier had shepherded his Queen through those dark times, and sometimes I suspected that her Heir, King Henri I, who my own dead King had been named for, was di Halier’s instead of her Consort’s.
    Di Halier had never written as much overtly, but…
    History did not matter. What mattered was that Vianne, somehow, had wakened the Seal from its slumber. I did not think even
she
knew what she had done. The Seal frightened her, and well it should—she remarked once or twice that
she
did not use it, it simply worked
through
her. Being so used did not strike me as a comfortable event, especially when I saw her afterward, blank-faced, pale, needing careful chivvying to wake and warm her.
    And to remind her of who she was.
    My head was down as we rode, peripheral vision serving to keep me aware while I thought as deeply as I dared. Tinan hummed a courtsong, taking at face value my promise not to stray. Of course, I was the Captain. His habit of treating me as such had not yet eroded. What did the Guard know, and how could I turn that knowledge to my favor? Jierre, of course, might be lost; Vianne had no doubt worked her will thoroughly there and meant to use him as a balance to my own influence. And yet—
    The square behind the Main Gate opened around us, and I looked up.
    “Dear gods,” I breathed.
Is she mad?
    For the bracing behind the Gate had been cleared, and there was my Vianne, cloaked, on the same docile white palfrey. Adersahl di Parmecy beside her on his gray, and on a dark gelding to her right a familiar bruised face sat atop a stiff body. Fridrich van Harkke sat his horse like a nobleman and glowered at the Gate. Even a hedgewitch charming could not erase the damage I’d done to his face.
    Serves you well. You were between me and my Queen, assassin.
It was twice I had worsted him. The next time, gods willing, I would kill. He was far too dangerous to be allowed so close to her.
    The other figure was a Messenger—Divris di Tatancourt, dark curls, a nobleman’s carriage, and his uniform freshly laundered. The killspell laid on him had not found its target, thanks to my Vianne, and he would no doubt be gratefully loyal. Or at least, so she obviously hoped.
    My father was there too, on an ill-tempered black charger. The slim figure on my mother’s horse bent toward him, a last-minute conference.
    Garonne di Narborre would not be entering the city.
    She intended to sally forth to meet him.
    *   *   *
     
    “Do not trouble yourself, Baron.” Vianne’s face was set and remote. She did not seem to have slept, if the bruised circles of flesh under her eyes were any indication. The blue silk she wore bore the marks of my mother’s dressmaker, and her hair was braided simply.
    Still, she was every inch the royal. Perhaps being locked underground had given me fresh eyes. Where had she acquired this look of brittle grace, this air of command? The woman I had married was an unwilling Queen at best. This
d’mselle
, her set, pale face as fine-carved as a classic Tiberian statue, was… something else.
    My hands tightened on Arran’s reins. He tensed before I could master myself, and I let out a long slow breath.
    “The more I think on it, the more I think it unwise—” My father’s objection was merely brushed aside. She raised one gloved hand, and the novel sight of Perseval d’Arcenne swallowing his words fair threatened to lay me flat with surprise.
    “I told you not to trouble yourself, Baron. All will go well, especially if…” She broke off as we approached.
    “I brought him!” Tinan di Rocham announced. Adersahl sighed, but twas the Pruzian I watched.
    Fridrich van Harkke paid no attention to my presence. He gazed at the Gate with surpassing intensity,