closes his mouth with a snap.
“She is as different from your mother as you are from your father. She does not have the mind to do nothing but sit and sew with her ladies. She is fiercely intelligent and intensely loyal. She went nose to nose with your sister and held her at bay. She turned a sure defeat into a victory. Why would you not want your children to possess such virtues as she possesses?”
The tightness around his mouth softens.
“My lord, her father is dead. Her mother, too. As well as her younger sister. She has no family but the one you create together. She has so much to give. As do you.”
“But she created this rebellion in order to . . .”
“In order to what? For therein lies the true flaw of your argument. She gains nothing by any of this. It was the general’s and your sister’s doing. Whether they engineered it or simply grasped the opportunity once it presented itself, they used her as a scapegoat to hide their own desire to influence you. All they needed to say was that she wished it, and you did the opposite. It was no more difficult to steer your thoughts and inclinations than it was to steer a cart.”
His nostrils flare in irritation.
“A very royal, magnificent cart, Your Majesty.”
“Do not lob empty flattery at me.”
“It was but a jest. I know how hard it can be to look at our mistakes, made with the best of intentions, but mistakes nonetheless. For me, jesting softens the sting of it.”
“Yes, let’s talk of your mistakes,” he says. “Your note.” His lips curl in a sneer. “I could have protected you. The council would not have listened to her.”
“Are you so very certain, Your Majesty? The Bishop of Albi is her creature, bought and paid for. General Cassel wishes to punish everyone—most brutally—at the slightest provocation. And I am still not convinced that he is not working in close concert with your sister. What if they hadn’t listened to you? It was not a risk I was prepared to take.
“I had to go where she could not find me or else be used against you. I could not live with that possibility and did not want you to have to live with that threat.”
“You think me too weak to stand against her.”
I fear a pitched army of ten thousand is too weak to stand against her, but do not share that with him. “No, but she is cunning and devious enough to weave a web that ensured standing up to her cost you dearly. That is what I wished to spare you.”
He stares at me, unmoved.
I take a step toward him. “She threatened to expose you to the council if I could not convince you to hand Sybella over into her brother’s custody. She gave me the choice of betraying you or betraying my sister. I chose neither.”
“Lady Sybella is as important to you as your king?”
“She is my sister.”
“She is a fellow initiate of the convent!”
He does not believe it was a true choice. He thinks we are nothing but friends. “Which means she is my sister,” I say gently. “We are all of us sired by the patron saint of death. That is how we come to his service.”
“Saints do not lie with women!” For a man who has lain with more than his fair share, he sounds scandalized.
“Saints who once walked the earth as gods do. It is how we are made. Why we are trained in his arts.”
He stares at me a moment—belief warring with doubt. “That is precisely why my advisors wish to have you renounce your faith—it is heretical.”
“It is not, sire. Surely the Church keeps detailed records of its decisions and councils. There was exactly such a council that created the Nine. Your Majesty, it is not my intent to argue theology with you, but to show you that Sybella is, for all intents and purposes, my sister, and I could not betray her in such a way.”
His head snaps up. “And how would putting her in her brother’s custody, where she rightfully belongs, betray her?”
No matter how hard I try to extricate myself, I only get caught further in the net. “He does not have her best interests at heart. Where is she now?”
He angles his body away from me, as if disgusted. “She is being detained for her part in the rebellion.”
“She was not rebelling, she was fighting against it.”
“And so we’re