Chapter 249: Regency

“But I don’t know why it should be Thomas Falkenrath coming, and not Bennet,” Millie groused. “I should never have left Courland. We’re simply too far away to know what’s happening.” She couldn’t help but let out a huff of frustration.

“Have another cup of tea, Your Royal Highness,” Evangeline Howe urged her. There was a pot on a trestle table set against the wall of the king's council chamber, full of lemon and ginger tea. Millie would have preferred chamomile, but the court chirurgeon, Giles, had advised against it for the duration of her pregnancy.

“If my son hasn’t arrived yet, it will be for a good reason,” Baron Elias Howe remarked. “It may be that he’s reduced their fortifications at the pass and moved on to siege Whitehill itself.” The baron sat at the king’s right hand, opposite Queen Artemisia, and then Millie. Much of the long council table was empty, with so many of their close allies out of the capital.

“You’ve had no word from your father before now, Lady Cecily?” King Benedict asked, and every eye in the room turned to Millie’s other lady in waiting.

Cecily Falkenrath lurked along the wall like a spectre, somehow having found the darkest shadow in the room. Behind her, a tapestry depicted the death of Sivis at the hands of Mirriam. “I received word at the same time you did, your majesty," she answered. “When they came through the waystone. I haven’t spoken to my father or my brother since I left Courland with the princess.”

Millie’s father frowned, and wet his throat with a long sip from his goblet of wine. “I’ve learned never to trust anything until it's done, where the Summersets are concerned,” he grumbled. “They’re sly as foxes, particularly my father’s bastard.”

“She should never have been allowed to grow to maturity,” Baron Howe remarked.

“You think I don’t know that?” Benedict shot back. “My mother attempted to dispose of her on multiple occasions, but my uncle always protected her. I’ll only breathe a sigh of relief when I see her head on a spike. She’s been like a load of stones on my back for as long as I can remember.”

The doors to the council chamber were flung open, and Thomas Falkenrath stalked in at the head of a great mass of men and women - more than Millie had expected. And some of the faces she saw were a cause for great concern. Duke Richard and Baron Kerlin Ward had been with the army when she’d left, but Ingram Ryder and Amelina Ridgley had flat out refused to support the war effort. Had the Falkenraths bought their support, somehow? And her great-uncle Caspian - he hadn’t left Coral Bay in months. Cade Talbot, whose loyalty was questionable at best. Why was the Eldish ambassador in the room? There was even a priest - old, bald Eustace, who led daily prayers at the Freeport temple of the Trinity, and had blessed her wedding.

“Ah, excellent,” King Benedict said, rising from his chair. Millie, her father in law, and her mother stood when the king did. “Duke Thomas, Duke Richard, here to report on the progress of the war, I imagine. We’ve been eagerly anticipating news of my son-in-law’s victory. Barons, Baroness. Uncle. Please, be seated and have a cup of wine. You must all be thirsty from travel.”

Thomas Falkenrath shook his head. “We’ll stand.”

That wasn’t right, either - not even a duke should have refused the king’s hospitality, or spoke to him in such an informal fashion. Millie felt a spike of the worry that had gnawed at her belly since parting with her husband when he marched north - like an ember that flared to life at a breath of air.

“ - Cecily, to my side,” Falkenrath was saying. Millie’s attention had only strayed for a moment, but she’d missed something. She watched her lady in waiting walk the length of the room, leaving the side of the royal family to join the group clustered about the foot of the table.

“Speak, man,” Baron Howe urged. His impatience was showing. “Is my son well? Has the rebellion been put down?”

“There is no further rebellion in Lucania,” Duke Falkenrath stated, plainly, and at his words, Millie let out a sigh of relief.hen,” she said, looking up and down the table. “It’s done, isn’t it? If we lost an army killing them, that’s a small price to pay. Bennet can always muster another, and go back to finish the job. Matthew Summerset’s a cripple, and Beatrice Crosbie won’t be able to fight if we strike now.”

“She won’t, will she?” Cade Talbot asked, and his eyes fastened on her with the predatory, killing intent of some hawk or eagle looking down on its prey. “And why is that?”

“Well -” Millie hesitated. She shouldn’t have said that; now everyone was looking at her. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she? I could swear I’ve heard that rumor making the rounds.”

“Funny,” Cecily Falkenrath said. “I hadn’t heard that. And here I thought we shared all our gossip together.”

“Perhaps I was thinking of someone else,” Millie protested. “But that isn’t the point. With Julianne dead, the entire rebellion will fall apart.”

“As it so happens, it did not,” Duke Richard said. The man limped over to a chair, pulled it out, and sat without so much as asking the king for permission.

“Then who?” Millie’s father asked, and she saw the moment he realized in his face. “That bastard Eldish girl. The murderer. The cook’s daughter.”

“I watched Liv Brodbeck -” Richard began, but he was interrupted by the Eldish ambassador, who’d been silent this entire time at the back of the room.

“Livara tär Valtteri, of the House Syvä,” Ambassador Sakari corrected him. “And I would request there be no further insults toward her.”

“I watched Livara duel Archmagia Arundell through the sky above the pass,” Richard continued. “From my cot, with the wounds she’d given me still wrapped in bandages and crusted with blood. It was like watching two goddesses fight - like a piece of the war, from twelve-hundred years ago. I thought I could beat her with an enchanted sword.” He laughed at himself, a sharp, derisive sound of derision and regret.

“A blizzard came with her,” the duke told them. “Like the heart of winter itself. Once it engulfed our soldiers, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face - just white, in every direction. Men huddled against each other for warmth, and died shivering. When the storm had passed, they were frozen inside hunks of ice.”

Millie couldn’t help but shiver. She remembered a flower of ice opening on the sand of the north beach, all those years ago, and the slip of a girl who’d walked out, with a frozen blade in her hand.

“The peace was not negotiated with Matthew Summerset,” Duke Thomas declared, once Richard had finished speaking. “He’s knelt to this woman, along with Baron Crosbie, the Grenfells, and at least two Eldish houses, probably with more to come. Congratulations, Benedict - instead of a duchess at your northern border, now you’ve got a queen. They call her the Lady of Winter, like she’s one of the old gods returned.”

The feet of the king’s chair scraped against the floor as he finally sat down, his eyes unfocused, roaming around the room without locking on anyone or anything in particular. “The terms,” Millie’s father said, hoarsely. Then he coughed once, and spoke again, with more strength. “You negotiated terms, Duke Thomas? On behalf of this crown? What were they?”

“First,” Duke Falkenrath said. “Forgiveness and amnesty for everyone who fought on behalf of this ‘Northern Alliance.’ That includes the Grenfells, the Everys, and the Corbetts. The Everys and Corbetts are confirmed in their lands and titles, while the Grenfells will have new lands in the north, apparently.”

“That’s standard,” Millie’s mother said, placing a hand on her husband’s arm. “So long as they forgive our fighters in return.”

“Secondly, Houses Loredan and Sherard, and their vassals, will be put to the question,” Falkenrath continued. “All found to have indulged in the worship of the blood goddess, or given succor to her cult, will be cast out of the church and burned.”

“A duty I will be glad to oversee personally,” Eustace promised.

Millie clenched her hands into fists underneath the table, where no one could see.

“Third, the borders to be recognized. I’ve negotiated ransom for the noble prisoners this new queen was willing to part with,” Falkenrath said, without any trace of eagerness. “Ransoms I have every intention of being fully reimbursed for.”

That was something, at least. Millie pressed a hand to her chest. “That will be where Bennet is, then?” She nodded, and looked to her father-in-law for help. “Of course. It makes sense why he isn’t here with you. We’ll pay whatever price she’s asking, so long as my husband is returned to us safely.”

“In that, Princess Milisant, I regret to inform you that you will be disappointed,” Thomas Falkenrath said. “Livara tär Valtteri was unwilling to ransom Lord Commander Howe, along with Baron Seton, Merek of House Sherard, and Sir Emory, commander of the Arundell Lightning Guard. She hanged them all like common criminals, before we marched south.”

For a moment, the words seemed to lack meaning, as if somehow there was a blockage, or an interruption, between Millie’s ears and the part of her mind that made sense of things. The individual sounds were familiar, but taken together, they simply made no sense.

“Bennet...” she said, lamely, her own voice sounding weak and unsteady even to herself.

“Is dead,” Baroness Amelina Ridley said, stepping forward from the crowd to pin Millie with her cold, unsympathetic gaze. “You are a widow, child, and you had best get used to it. You may recall that I warned you there was a limit to what we would put up with. You have reached, and exceeded that limit. I only pray, for your own sake, that you were never involved in your grandmother’s disgusting sacrifices.”

Millie looked to her father-in-law, who had collapsed back into his chair with an ashen face; to Evangeline Howe, who was already weeping; and to her father, whose eyes were darting back and forth among the nobles confronting them, with all the desperation of a mouse who’s been cornered by a tomcat on the prowl.

“This is a rebellion,” King Benedict said, and the words, by their very utterance, seemed to change the atmosphere of the room.

“No.” Thomas Falkenrath shook his head. “We are simply doing what is necessary to set this kingdom to rights. I believe, personally, that were your father still alive, King Roland would support us wholeheartedly. The fourth term of the peace is that both you, Benedict of House Loredan, and your daughter, Milisant, will abdicate your rights to the throne of Lucania.”

Someone in the room was sobbing, and it was only after it had been going on for some while that Millie realized that person was her.

“In favor of my uncle, I suppose,” Benedict said, his mouth twisted in disdain. “And the laws will be re-written to allow it. You were always jealous of the throne, Caspian.”

“If I had truly wanted your crown, I could have taken it long ago,” the archmagus said. “What I wanted, Benedict, was for our family to prosper. For a dynasty tracing its lineage back to Mirriam herself not to falter while I yet lived. In that goal, I regret that I have failed.”

“There will be a council of regents,” Duke Richard explained. “Until the princess’s child comes of age. Three seats, with all the powers of the crown wielded by majority vote between them. The seats will be held by Duke Thomas, Archmagus Loredan, and myself, and pass to our heirs should we perish before the next monarch has reached their majority.”

“My baby?” Millie said. “You’re going to let my baby rule?”

“That child is perhaps the only member of our family who bears not the slightest fault for what has happened,” Caspian Loredan said. “You will remain here at the palace, under guard, until you have brought the infant to term. At that time, Princess Milisant, you will join your father and mother in exile. The heir to the throne will remain here, to be raised by the council of regents.”

“No!” Millie screamed. Her stormwand was in her hand before she even realized she was moving. “You won’t take my baby from me!” Lightning gathered around the tip of her wand, then died as Archmagus Loredan raised his hand, palm outward. A great weight crashed down on Millie, and she staggered beneath it.

“Æn’Ceiēs,” Caspian Loredan said, and the words sunk into Millie’s brain like a warm blanket, like her mother’s lullaby. Her legs collapsed beneath her, and she was only dimly aware that she was caught up in strong arms before she hit the floor.