Free The Miracle Thief by Iris Anthony

victor, not they.”
    â€œA truer word was never spoken. He won. And now he will never let me forget it. So now he has what he wants, he has a treaty, although I’ve wrested his best lands from him in forfeit. Lands that ought to have been my own.”
    My father thought the count’s lands and titles ought to be his, just as the count thought my father’s crown ought to have been his own. There was no end to the enmity between them. “And what of me?”
    He turned a sorrow-filled gaze on me. “You heard the archbishop. He made an agreement.”
    â€œThen unmake it, I pray you!”
    â€œAnd go back on my word? The Danes would mock me. And so would all of my vassals. What man would pledge himself to one who will not keep his own word?”
    â€œBut it was not your word. It’s was the archbishop’s—”
    â€œWhom I appointed to speak for me.”
    â€œBut, wasn’t I to marry Rudolph of Burgundy? Or the Count of Vermandois? Is that not what you’ve always said?”
    In her corner, the queen stirred.
    â€œIt’s what I had always hoped. An alliance with the Burgundians would have been wise. And very profitable.”
    Would have been? Had he already given me up? A desperate panic took wing in my stomach. “I would rather—I would rather…”
    His gaze sharpened as if he were curious to hear what I would say.
    â€œI would rather marry Robert’s son Hugh than—”
    â€œDo not say it! Do not even think for one moment I would consent to unite that despicable family with my own. At least the pagan is honorable.”
    â€œBut, they’re—they’re Danes ! They’re murderous monsters who do nothing but pillage and plunder. You have not consigned me to some ignominious marriage. You have consigned me to death!”
    ***
    I had entreated my father to be kind to me. I had appealed to his sense of justice. I had invoked the grave of his mother, the old queen. It had availed me nothing. I was to be offered to the Danes as if it had been my father’s idea from the first. Would that I was marshy like Flanders. Then perhaps the chieftain would have no use for me.
    My father left me there, prostrate, my pleas resounding from the marble walls. He declared he must dine with his counselors. In truth, I knew he was trying to escape me. He hated me to be angry with him. I could not say I had not used it to my advantage once.
    Or twice, perhaps.
    I lay there for several minutes, trying to think of what I had forgotten to say, of some other thing I might have used to change his mind, but there was nothing. As I pushed to my feet, I heard something, saw some movement in the corner. Whirling, I expected to see my stepmother lounging there, gloating. But it was not her. It was Andulf sitting upon her cushions, peeling an apple with his knife.
    â€œHow long have you been there?”
    â€œHere?” His gaze lifted for a moment from the apple and then went right back to it. “On the cushions? Not long.”
    I could not decide if I ought to be offended. But how could I fault him for performing the task that had been set before him? Still, shame crept up to warm the tips of my ears, and I wished there were some other society I might seek to join. But there was none.
    â€œThey are not married, my lady.”
    I was too spent to pretend I did not know to whom he referred.
    He took a bite of the apple, and then spoke as he was chewing. “Poppa is just a concubine.”
    Just a concubine. “And you think that makes me feel better? That it should abolish all of my complaints?”
    â€œI did not think—”
    â€œNo. You did not. And now you’ve done nothing but make it all worse. Be gone!”
    â€œYou cannot—”
    â€œGo!”
    â€œI can’t.” He had not even unfolded those long legs of his to try.
    A sorry use I was of royalty. Even my own knight would not obey me. “If you