Sophronia swallows. “Beatriz can take care of herself,” she says, hoping that it’s true. “Temarin can’t.”
Beatriz tries to ignore the persistent guilt that nags at her, but it becomes her constant companion during the days after Lord Savelle’s arrest. It follows her to tea in the palace solarium with Gisella. It walks beside her when she strolls through the sea garden with Pasquale. It even lies next to her in bed, keeping her awake for hours and haunting her dreams when she does manage to sleep.
He won’t be executed, not yet. King Cesare seems to be engaged in a staring contest with Temarin, knowing that executing their ambassador would be an act of war, but tempted to risk it nonetheless.
The letter Beatriz finds from her mother, tucked into the petals of a dried rose she sent, doesn’t help matters.
You have set up your dominoes, my dove. All that’s left to do is knock the first down. See to it that no mercy is shown to Lord Savelle.
The empress has been patient for nearly two decades, but now her patience is running thin. Beatriz knows how easy it would be to convince the king to execute Lord Savelle; she imagines herself doing it over breakfast with the king and Pasquale—how she might affect a melodramatic sigh and let slip how unsafe Lord Savelle makes her feel, how he tried to convince her to use magic but how she, of course, resisted him. Anything to stoke King Cesare’s righteous fury against the man, anything to make war with Temarin seem worth it.
But instead she holds her tongue and eats her poached eggs and lets King Cesare ramble on about sacrilegious Temarinians, which courtiers he suspects are plotting against him today, and whether or not someone is trying to assassinate him. This last one, at least, is a new paranoia.
“Who would want to kill you, Your Majesty?” Beatriz asks, giving him her most charming smile. She hasn’t forgotten about his wandering hands or leering gaze, though he seems to keep both to himself when Pasquale is around, at least.
But rather than returning her smile, King Cesare only glowers at her. “I can think of two people who would stand to gain quite a lot by killing me,” he says coldly.
Beatriz exchanges a glance with Pasquale before she forces herself to laugh. There is nothing funny about being accused of trying to murder a king, but Beatriz is aware of the guards standing at the door, of the servants bustling in and out to distribute and collect plates. She knows that if she doesn’t play it off as a joke, that rumor will grow legs, and that is the last thing she needs.
“You’re too funny, Your Majesty,” she says. “Truly, nothing would make us happier than if you were to live forever—ruling seems like a terrible chore. I much prefer being a princess to a queen. All of the glamour, none of the responsibility. Isn’t that right, Pas?”
Pasquale nods, but he lacks her ability to think quickly under pressure. Stars bless him, though, he tries his best. “I can’t imagine anyone would want to kill you, Father,” he says, though he keeps glancing at her as if taking instruction. “Why, without you, Cellaria would surely cease to exist.”
It might be laying it on a bit heavy, but King Cesare gives a snort before reaching for his wine again, looking at least somewhat appeased.
“You’re damn right, Pasquale,” he says before finishing off the glass and gesturing for his cupbearer to bring him more—not Nicolo, Beatriz notes with a mixture of relief and disappointment, but another boy. This one, she remembers, is some third cousin once removed of Pasquale’s.
“My bitch of a sister in Temarin keeps writing me about Savelle,” the king says once his glass has been refilled. “Wants me to grant him mercy, at least so she says.”
Here’s Beatriz’s chance—the perfect opening to push him to execute Lord Savelle—but confusion swarms her. She received Sophronia’s letter the day after Lord Savelle was arrested, telling her about Cesare and Eugenia plotting together to seize Temarin and asking about a wine label. Beatriz hadn’t thought much of it—it seemed likely to be a moot point anyway, with war looming so close. But if Cesare and Eugenia are plotting together, the king’s outburst doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t they be coordinating better? It’s possible, of course, that King Cesare’s memory is faltering, but if he possesses the faculties to plot a siege, he can’t be that far gone, can he?
And the wine label—Beatriz has had her fair share of wine in Cellaria, but none of it has been from Cosella, and a few casual inquiries to the servants have yielded only confusion.
“What do you mean?” Beatriz asks now, wondering if Sophronia might be receiving faulty information.
King Cesare waves a hand and laughs, his dark mood of only seconds ago suddenly forgotten. That isn’t unusual these days either—his black moods are like Cellarian rainstorms: brutal, but fleeting.
“Eugenia must think me an idiot,” he says. “Telling me she wishes I would release Savelle so he could return to Temarin, all the while reminding me of the reasons I should just burn him and be done with it. I’m beginning to suspect she wants me to kill him.”
That makes Beatriz frown. If they are conspiring together to start a war, why would Eugenia put up the pretense of telling him not to execute Savelle? And what’s more, why would she have to try to convince him of anything at all? If Cesare really did want a war with Temarin, like Sophronia thinks, why wouldn’t he have executed Lord Savelle straightaway?
“Perhaps she is simply goading you,” Beatriz offers, though the wheels of her mind are still spinning. “That is what siblings do, isn’t it? I know my sisters and I always took great joy in trying to get a rise out of one another. Perhaps she simply doesn’t realize the gravity of the situation.”
“And you do?” King Cesare asks her, a mocking note to his voice. “Tell me about the gravity of the situation, Beatriz.”
She can feel his mood darkening again, and even if she couldn’t, the look Pasquale sends her is warning enough.
“Well,” she begins, feeling like she is walking on a rotting bridge—one false step will send her plummeting. But she hears her mother’s words echo in her mind. You have set up your dominoes, my dove. All that’s left to do is knock the first down.
“It just seems like a very serious thing,” she says. “The ambassador of a foreign country, coming into your lands—your home, even—with such disrespect. It isn’t as if he simply spoke out of turn or didn’t show you the proper deference, Your Majesty—he flouted what many would call Cellaria’s most serious law. He didn’t only disrespect you, he disrespected the stars. Is that not a serious thing?”
She feels like the entire room is holding its breath—not only her and Pasqual, but the servants and guards as well. Even the air itself seems particularly still.
“You are quite right, Beatriz—almost as intelligent as you are beautiful,” the king says, and Beatriz lets out a breath. Then, suddenly, King Cesare slams his palm against the table, the sound of it echoing through the room and making everyone jump. “Lord Savelle’s offense cannot stand—he will be executed at the next burning. If Temarin wants to bring war to our door, let them. We’ll be ready.”