This Scepter'd Isle by Mercedes Lackey, Roberta Gellis Page B

thinking later. Likely he would regret it if he blasted those so useful to him, but then it would be too late for them. If they foiled his strike, he might even be grateful.
    "You Saw the wrong child," Vidal roared. "You have spent months insinuating yourselves into Princess Mary's household, and she was never the one who is critical to the future we desire."
    Now both Pasgen and Rhoslyn looked dumbfound. "But that can't be true, my lord," Rhoslyn protested. "Princess Mary is the ruler who will bring the Inquisition to England. She is already fanatically devoted to her religion. She has been taught by her mother to be almost as devoted to Spain and its causes. Moreover Queen Catherine will not conceive again—I have made certain of that. It would be unlikely that the child would live, as no others have, but I could see no reason to leave such a chance alive. That makes Princess Mary the legal heir to England."
    "Legal heir," Vidal Dhu snarled. "In England the legal heir is who the king says is the heir."
    "But there is no other he could name," Pasgen said, raising his chin stubbornly. "Why should you call us traitor? We have done all that was required to ensure Mary's coming to the throne—"
    "There is another," the prince bellowed, springing to his feet. "And you did not See him or mention him. Was that apurpose? Are you so warped by that mother of yours that you secretly crave playing with the mortals and for that idle pleasure would deprive us all of the power that comes from their pain?"
    At the sneering mention of their mother, Rhoslyn's release of power to the net surged so strongly that to Pasgen's eyes it took on a soft glow. Rhoslyn might often be impatient with their mother's clinging, cloying affection, but she would hear no other criticize Llanelli. Pasgen touched her arm.
    "If Rhoslyn and I missed an heir to the throne, it was not by intention," Pasgen said with seeming calm. "For certain there is no red-haired infant—not even a distant cousin."
    "A son." Vidal Dhu sat down again, now his expression as he looked down at the twins would have been suitable if they were excrement left by one of his creatures on the carpet. "A son," he repeated. "And you missed him. Henry FitzRoy—"
    "We did not miss him," Rhoslyn said, flatly. "The son is nothing. I went with Mary's servant to bring him a little gift and I examined him." She shrugged. "He is six years old, and no infant. He is a bastard, and thus, not in the line of succession. And furthermore, he has none of the power that was hidden in the red-haired babe. He isn't specially clever. He isn't even specially pretty. He lives in obscurity—luxurious, well provided for, but with no hint of favor or special interest by his father."
    "True enough," Pasgen agreed. "I made an occasion to talk to the Spanish mage . . . ah, Martin Perez is his name. He is a servant of Charles V, sent to England to keep the Emperor informed of everything political. Perez told me that the king displayed FitzRoy widely when he was born to show that he could engender a live son, but then he swiftly lost interest in the boy. It would take a miracle before England would accept a bastard as the heir to the throne."
    Vidal Dhu's face had grown colder, more frozen, with each word they uttered. The twins fell silent.
    "Stupid! Lazy, stupid fools!"
    His voice was soft now and Rhoslyn and Pasgen braced themselves, but what he sent at them was not the massive blow of power they half expected or the ball of baelfire, both of which the net would have caught and dissipated. What flowed from the gesture he cast at them was a shower of tiny threads of brilliant colors—sick green, dirty yellow, virulent blue, bloody red—that wriggled through the spaces in the net and struck at any patch of bare skin.
    There was enough of that. Rhoslyn's gown exposed her neck, her shoulders and arms, and her chest down to the cleavage between her breasts. Pasgen wore only a sleeveless tunic, open in the front to