“Purchased from a shop in Oxford in 1662,” Alexander said. “By one of your forbears. The proprietor told her it belonged in your family.”
Penelope sat, silent. She did not entirely believe Alexander, but she had to agree that all he said was plausible.
And more than likely probable. How ridiculous to think she was the long-lost princess of a fairy-tale kingdom, needed to save a people. She was Penelope Trask, spinster, of Little Marching, Oxfordshire, collecting folk tales that she translated and copied.
The truth was, she’d loved the tales because she’d wanted to live one, she’d wanted to believe that one day a prince would come for her, would love her for herself, in the way Reuben White and Magnus never would. And when Damien had turned up, she’d not tried very hard to resist him.
Her eyes misting, she looked over at Damien. He was her husband, and she carried his child. That was real.
She noticed, through her tears, that Damien looked neither surprised nor outraged at Alexander’s revelations. She rose to her feet, limbs trembling. “You knew this,” she breathed to Damien. “You knew I was not truly…”
His eyes were sad. “I knew Alexander had these papers. I also knew Sasha’s notes said differently. He believes the line unbroken.”
“He is wrong,” Alexander said.
“I hardly care,” Damien answered. “I know what I felt when I saw her.”
“But you did not know when you set off,” Penelope said, realizing. “You did not know which I’d turn out to be.”
She saw him swallow, but his eyes never wavered. “I had to take the gamble. The stakes were worth it.”
“Would you have told me if you discovered I was not the princess?”
He hesitated a long moment. “I do not know.”
“Because you needed me for Nvengaria.”
“Yes.”
Tears dripped down her face. “I only wanted a husband,” she whispered, “and to be in love.”
Alexander gently slid aside the weights and removed the paper. “I regret to have caused you pain,” he said. He sounded like he did regret it, a polite host not wanting to cause a guest discomfort. “But my interpretation is the correct one.”
“When I saw you, Penelope,” Damien interrupted, “I knew Alexander was wrong.”
Alexander shot him a glance that was almost puzzled. The Grand Duke was a very intelligent man, Penelope sensed, and Sasha was driven by fanaticism. They were like the two sides of Nvengaria, Alexander’s steely intelligence and Sasha’s passionate emotion.
Damien had been forced to choose which he would believe. She wanted to tell him she understood, that she knew he had deliberately chosen love over cool reason, both for Nvengaria and himself. And that the choice had been difficult.
“We can never truly know,” she said softly. She glanced at Alexander. “But I can choose which one to be.”
“You would be a fool not to choose to return to England,” Alexander said.
She gave him a little smile. “I am a fool then. But Damien needs me here.”
Sasha made an exasperated noise. “Why do you argue? It matters not what is on your paper, Your Grace. She is the true princess. She follows the prophecy. She loves the prince, she tamed the logosh, she heals wounds. She healed me. Look.” He began hastily unbuttoning his coat, ready to show the closed knife wound in his back.
“Sasha,” Damien said sternly. “Not now.”
“But she healed me. We found her, just as was prophesied. She is the true princess.”
Alexander gave him a cold smile. “A man may recover from a wound without being healed by a princess.”
Sasha pointed at him. “You were not there. I was nearly dead. She brought me to life. She will bring life back to Nvengaria. She carries the prince’s child.”
“Sasha.” Damien swung around, his eyes filled with anger and fear.
“Shut your gob, you stupid man,” Egan said at the same time.
Alexander’s expression changed instantly from polite urbanity to the ruthlessness of a sword’s edge. He turned glittering eyes to Penelope. “Is this true? Do not lie.”
Penelope nodded once. The tension in the room rose swiftly, Alexander poised and ready like an executioner’s knife.
“I hoped the prince would not touch you,” he said. “But he could not resist, could he, a beautiful woman, the rituals, the famous Nvengarian lust? I cannot let you go, Miss Trask. Not while you carry the prince’s son.”
“You can,” Damien said in a hard voice. “Let her live as a widow in Oxfordshire. It might be a daughter.”
“That does not matter, and you know it. A boy prince will want his kingdom, a girl princess will claim descent from Augustus, no matter the line is broken.”
“Leave her alone, God damn you.”
“There is a way,” Alexander said thoughtfully. He let the paper roll in his hands and laid it back on the desk. “Marry me, Penelope, when he is dead, and claim the child is mine.”
Eyes wide, she shook her head. Alexander let his tone grow patient. “‘Tis better than going on the execution block next to him. I will save your life, but I swear there will be no more princes of Nvengaria.”
“Damien is nothing like his father,” Penelope cried. “He is gentle and kind and would never think to execute a woman.”
“No, but he would trick one into marrying him and lie to get her into his bed.” Alexander moved close to her. “Do you not see, Miss Trask? If you look at him sometimes, you see the madman inside him. It is like a trick of the light, and then you realize that the madness is truly there.”
Penelope wanted to draw a breath and tell him he was wrong, but it died on her lips. She thought of the times Damien had looked at her, his eyes cold as ice, remembered how he’d held her in the bath in Little Marching, begging her to not let his father take him over.
“You see it, too,” Alexander breathed. “Do you not?”
Penelope said nothing.
“It does not matter,” Damien broke in. “You want to rule Nvengaria like it was a shipping company, with neat returns. You want it to be clean and free of corruption, running along with all parts oiled. But it is not what the Nvengarians want.” He gestured to the stained-glass windows. “They want the fairy tale, the prince and princess. They want love and hate and lust and rage; they do not want oiled machines. Open the windows, Alexander. Listen to what they want.”
Alexander looked as though he wanted to shoot them all then and there, but he gestured for one of the lackeys to pull back the casement of one of the arched windows on the stone wall.
Sound poured through the window from the city below. Faintly she could hear Titus’s cries, but over that was pulsing sound, like a heartbeat, a chant from thousands of throats.
Damien, Damien, Damien, Damien.
“I inherited the title of Imperial Prince,” Damien said softly. “But I rule only by will of the people.”
“I will not let you have it,” Alexander said tightly.
“If you kill me, if you harm Penelope, they will rip you to pieces.”
Alexander looked toward the windows, his eyes glittering. Penelope saw his chest rise with a sharp breath. He was angry, but his anger was not mad or mindless. The anger was clear and intelligent. He saw exactly what was wrong, and sought only to put it right.
“Perhaps if—” Penelope began, but broke off when the soldier at the window suddenly screamed and fell backward, his face covered in blood.
“What the hell?” Egan rumbled and drew his knife.
They poured in through the window, at least twenty of them, fast and dark and snakelike, moving with speed that the eye could not match. One moment they were not there, the next they simply were, surrounding the soldiers in a perfect ring, trapping the men, Alexander and Penelope, and Damien and his friends.
They were men, tall and hugely muscled, but they hadn’t been men a moment ago. Each had a mane of thick black hair cascading to shoulders, each was covered only in an anima
l skin slung across his hips. Their faces were man-shaped, but slightly narrower in the jaw, and their eyes were odd, wide and dark blue.
“Logosh,” Penelope exclaimed. “They’re logosh.”
Damien stood silently, but Egan broke into a harsh laugh. “I’ll be damned. Wulf didn’t fetch his mum, he fetched his dad, and all his dad’s friends.” He clapped both hands on Damien’s shoulders. “Damien, lad, you are one lucky son.”
“It was not luck,” he returned.
Penelope gasped. “You told Wulf to find them.”
Damien nodded once. “I thought I might need an army of my own.”
The soldiers stared at the logosh, faces white. They might never have seen logosh before, but they knew what they were, and of what logosh were capable.
The logosh by the window said, in thick Nvengarian, “We serve the princess.”
Damien threw open his hands, smiled at Alexander with his old charm. “I would think hard before hurting Penelope in any way. These are her retainers. The princess and the logosh. You know the legend?”
Alexander spoke as though he watched something from far away. “The princess healed the logosh, and won his undying loyalty, and that of his tribe.”
“You do read fairy tales,” Damien said. “That is what our people want, the legends. The reforms will get done. But the legends are forever.”
“But she is not really the princess,” Alexander said. “She is a sham.”
“Do you think that really matters? There was a story, and now it’s come true. They need that. They need her.”
“They need me,” Alexander snarled.
“Penelope, go to the window. Greet your people. See.”
Grasping her skirts in her shaking hands, Penelope clicked to the window, passing between two of the scantily clad, very muscled logosh. They did not bow to her or smile, they simply turned as she passed, fixing their strange eyes on her.
She pulled back the half-open casement and looked out.
The wall of the castle here dropped straight down to the city, unimpeded by any curtain walls. The drop was sheer, fifty feet or so—the logosh had climbed straight up it. In the town, at the bottom of the wall, were the people, a mass of color and noise.
When they saw Penelope, they nearly went insane. The chanting of Damien’s name faded, to be replaced by a tumult of cheering, a wave of joy that swamped her. She lifted her hand to them, and the cheering, if anything, increased.
She looked back into the room and held out her hand. “Damien.”
He came to her, his Nvengarian medals clinking, his dark hair dusty, his chin unshaven. He looked much as he had when she’d first met him, a charming, handsome man who swept her from her feet and began to make love to her in Holden’s meadow.
He stepped to the window. Screams and cheers floated to them, banners waved. Damien cupped Penelope’s face in his hand, leaned down, and kissed her.
She heard Titus’s cry and the crowd’s response, but she felt only Damien’s hungry kiss. She laced one hand around his neck, rising to his mouth.
Inside the room, Egan swore. Penelope broke the kiss and looked around in time to see one of the soldiers draw his pistol and level it at Damien.
The pistol flashed, powder exploding. Damien flung Penelope to the floor and landed on her as the bullet crashed into the glass. The logosh attacked.
She heard men screaming and the high-keening shrieks of the logosh. Another logosh skimmed up the wall and in through the open window, a very small one.
“Wulf,” she shouted as he leapt over her and straight onto Alexander.
Damien sprang to his feet, running for him. Penelope scrambled up, wrestling with her skirts, dashing after him. She noted that Petri had pulled Sasha out of the way, while Egan ran to help Damien. The two men yanked the maddened logosh from Alexander and tossed him aside.
Alexander lay on the floor, his beautiful blue coat in shreds, the Grand Duke’s sash of office slashed to ribbons. Alexander’s face was pasty white, blood streaming from wounds in his stomach. He struggled to breathe.
Wulf landed against Penelope and became a boy before he hit the floor. His fingers and mouth bloody, he threw his child’s arms about her waist.
She gently pressed him aside, and sank to her knees beside Alexander. Petri pulled open what remained of the coat. “That is a death wound,” he announced.
Damien looked grim. Penelope smoothed Alexander’s hair from his cold forehead.
His eyes, filled with pain, swiveled to her but did not focus, as though he struggled to see but could not. “I’ll not let him win,” he said.
“Do not move too much,” she begged.
“No.” He groped for her hand. “Miss Trask, you must promise me you will not let the monster out.”
Penelope took Alexander’s ice-cold hand between hers. “I will watch him,” she said softly. “I promise.”
Behind her, the logosh had stopped. The soldiers, terrified, had surrendered. The logosh, men once more, stood over them, looking as calm as they had before the fight began.
“Tell my son.” Alexander broke off and gasped, blood trickling from his mouth.
“You have a son?” Penelope asked, her voice gentle.
“Tell him I love him,” Alexander whispered. “Tell him not to be ashamed of me.”
“I will take care of him,” Damien said, on one knee next to him. “I swear that.”
“Not you,” Alexander said, seeking Penelope with sightless eyes. “Her.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’ll not let you die.”
Sasha made his way to Penelope. “She is the true princess,” he told Alexander, standing over him. “She can heal you.”
Alexander gave him an ironic smile, although it was clear he could see nothing. “I am not reassured.”
“Bring me water and a sponge and bandages,” Penelope commanded. “And herbs—lavender and chamomile.”
Petri looked troubled. “‘Tis mortal, Your Highness. His stomach’s cut.”
“Bring them,” she said sternly.
Petri creaked to his feet, resigned, and departed.
Damien helped her move aside the coat and shirt and the slashed waistband of Alexander’s trousers. Penelope put her hands to the bloody mess of Alexander’s stomach. His blood pulsed around her fingers, and she felt his heartbeat, strange and erratic.
She had no idea what to do. She only knew she could do it.
She closed her eyes, letting her thoughts slide away, comforting darkness taking their place. She saw, not his bones and muscle, but lines and crosses that had to be arranged in a certain way. It gave her pleasure to straighten them in her mind, to cross one over the other, to align this one with that one. Everything untangled to become smooth and straight and neat. The finished pattern made her smile, sending a warmth like joy over her body.
Alexander gasped, and she opened her eyes.
He was staring at her, his focus sharp, his lips parted in shock. But color had returned to his face; his breathing and heartbeat were as normal. Every wound on his torso had dried and closed, dark red streaks the only evidence he’d ever been hurt.
Petri stood beside her, a dripping bowl of water in his hands, and Egan looked over Damien’s shoulder, his mouth open. Damien looked at her with eyes full of astonishment, but behind that pride and love.
“You see,” Sasha said, shrugging as though nothing extraordinary had happened. “She is the true princess, as I said.”
The royal wedding was scheduled to take place in a week. When the duchess who would be in charge of protocol heard the news, she had hysterics. “A week? I cannot organize a royal wedding in a week! There is a banquet, and invitations, and…”
Damien soothed her by telling her that while the wedding would be a simple affair, the coronation, which she had months to plan, could be the most opulent in the history of Nvengaria.
She went away, shaking her head, and Sasha, looking aggrieved, went with her, no doubt to explain that Damie
n was an eccentric.
There remained the question of what to do with Alexander. Damien had placed him under house arrest—no more dungeons, he’d said sternly—but he had to end it sometime. He had the jailors, retainers from the new palace guard, handpicked by Petri, bring Alexander to see him in Damien’s small study a week after Alexander had surrendered.
Alexander sat in a comfortable wing chair facing Damien. Damien had chosen this room to be part of his suite because it had the least amount of gilding, marble, wall hangings, and garish furniture. It looked like the large study of a simpler country house, and Damien wanted simplicity.
Alexander waited, fingers steepled, for Damien to pronounce his sentence. He might be waiting to learn the outcome of a horse race he had only passing interest in.
Damien began without preliminaries. “Your reforms are sensible, you know. I went through all your notebooks, all your schemes. They make much sense given Nvengaria’s need to compete with the rest of Europe in industry, and yet to keep us from being swallowed by the larger fish.”
“I am pleased you approve,” Alexander said.
“I more than approve, I will adopt most of them; they match my own ideas. Your outline for the restructuring of government, on the other hand, will have to go.”
“The restructuring is not implausible. Our system was out of date a century after it was initiated.”
“Maybe,” Damien conceded. “It is unwieldy and divides power too unevenly, but it will have to do. The only way I could instigate a complete restructuring is to force it on the people, by sword if necessary, and that I refuse. Gradual change is better. I recalled the Council of Mages.”
“So I heard.” Alexander’s eyes darkened with anger. “Most of them were loyal to your father and will fight you on anything you want to change.”
“I know that.”
“Many in the Council of Dukes bear hatred for you as well. They did not like me, but they simply did not like me. They loathe the Imperial Prince with a hatred that has run deep for centuries. It is a different thing.”
Damien nodded, twisting the heavy silver ring on his finger. “I will handle each problem as it occurs. I never thought that being Imperial Prince of Nvengaria would be a particularly safe occupation.”