They pick their prey, but they never cry out loud
Rose has never been less capable than her brother. When she and William were small, they were daggers, sharp and cunning. He was entranced by history and politics, took to economics like a conductor to an orchestra, but when they played chess she always won. Her studies included all the proper accoutrements of a lady, etiquette and conversation, dancing, the piano and the harp. William thought these were nothing, frivolous nonsense compared to the myriad lessons the world offered him, and he thought less of his sister for it. Because he was stupid. In the greatest extent of his vision he couldn't see that gears ungreased would not turn, a pebble could halt the mechanizations of society he held so dear, and all his plans could fall to waste for want of a smile. William wanted to be the prime mover, but she knew herself the hinge.
They met General Silas Benjamin at a military function, a parade of well-pressed uniforms and meringue dresses. Silas looked like he'd spurned his tailor in a past life. There was still dirt under his nails from the battlefield and fire in his eyes better suited to a hail of gunfire than a round of applause.
"What a buffoon."
"They say he is blessed," she chided her brother.
"Good, a fool and a fanatic. You can't believe that nonsense."
"Battles from which lesser men would shrink, General Benjamin brings to victory with a sweep of his hand. He draws men to him like flocking birds to a point. I believe he has a gift for performance, William, and that is nearly as rare."
"Where are you going?"
"To correct whatever mistake in the seating chart put my seat so far from his."
"And me?"
"We'll have the general to lunch tomorrow. Wouldn't it be convenient if your man in finances happened by?" Without a second glance she was off to spent the evening at Silas's side, finely manicured nails shining against his arm and a honey-wine smile on her face.
In the end, they didn't need faith in God to have faith in Silas. He dreamed of kings rising from amidst squabbling politicians, of divine monarchy in an age of reason, absolutes where skepticism had long reigned. Rose fell in love with his vision first, swept away in a fervor she would never feel for the man alone. But she would come to love him too, in her way, with quiet constancy and respect that would harden with time into a bond strong as any romance. Of course, William took more convincing. He was too practical for such lofty propositions, too cynical for Reverend Samuels's prophetic zeal. But Silas was warmer then, down to earth despite the immensity of his goals. Rose set them off together in search of wine for a party she wasn't having, of a variety no winery in the city carried, and they came back brothers. She would be Silas's wife within the year.
Silas teases her, on nights when Altar Mansion is aglow with camera flashes and dazzled subjects, that her first child was the monarchy. Silas cleared the land and planted its seed, William's money fed its fledgling roots, but Rose brought it forth from the ground herself. While Carmel's cities burned she planned their replacements, great halls and banquets to welcome the new king. Everything from the stone-inlaid flooring to the inscription on the inside of the napkin rings spoke of her affectionate touch. When they hosted international delegates not a single out-of-place spoon spoke of disunity, even as the war raged on mere miles away. Silas felled army upon army, but Rose built an unshakable foundation in his wake, creating all the splendor of a land united under a single king well before the treaties were signed.
Pregnancy was the next logical step. Every monarchy needs a clear line of succession. Twins were not what she had hoped for, potentially complicating the very reason for their conception, but twenty weeks in the ultrasound showed one boy, one girl.
"Good," she exhaled relief, turning away from the monitor. "No cause for concern."
"They're beautiful, Rose."
"Yes." Her smile was crisp, her eyes closed. "Yes, of course they are."
It wasn't that she didn't love them. But they were still just things inside her, explanations for an aching back, a sharp pain in her ribs, the tiny drumming she couldn't imagine were feet until she saw them--their impossibly small curling toes, their fragile little limbs knocking into one another in the bassinet. She flinched when Silas held them, when his rough hands touched their peach-fuzz cheeks and when he didn't quite support their heads like she thought he should; no matter how careful he thought he was, he could always be more careful--
"-Silas."
"Your king is fully capable of burping an infant--will you not rest, wife, you have given sweat and tears enough for these two tonight."
"I will rest when you learn to hold him properly, husband."
Emotion had never gripped her like this; she had always been a creature of calm, of restraint, but she watched Jonathan--Jack, they had decided to call him Jack for short--wrap his tiny fingers around just one of Silas's and she knew there were no more limits. There was nothing of herself she would not give for them.
It started with a bruise. They were thirteen and Jack was the devil with an angel's smile, so when he told her he'd only barely pushed his sister she assumed--naturally, thoughtlessly--that he had pushed harder than that. It didn't matter if Michelle said he hadn't, Michelle always defended her twin, and the bruise spoke for itself, aflame with color on her porcelain skin. Rose was not pleased with him, less so when he refused to tell her the truth- until she'd seen the fear in his eyes, pale and timid like her hurricane of a child never was. She called the doctors.
Rose was there for the tests, the hours of waiting, alternating between digging at the dry skin beside her nails and scolding herself for doing so. She stayed through the first diagnosis and the next, months of tentative suggestions from doctors afraid to tell their king and queen the worst. Even when they knew, as long as there were treatments, as long as there was hope--even dried up leaf-scraps of it to grasp at in the wind--she did not falter. Quiet, oh-so-carefully restrained, she took the chair farthest from her daughter's side, letting Silas be the one to hold her hand when he could, letting Jack take his father's place when the king couldn't.
Rose told herself she would find it, this thing everyone else seemed to have within them, that let them comfort the sick (the dying) without breaking into a thousand pieces at the thought. But in the halls, she eyed the other patients, hollow-eyed, hurting things with all their beautiful hair fallen away. In that sickly white room she watched Michelle get weaker, the brightness in her eyes dimming with each passing day. Behind drawn curtains she listened, lip held captive between her teeth, as they explained the damages--that Michelle would never have children of her own; that in her blood was a poison they could only suppress, not cure; that colds other children would get over in a day would take her weeks, and that anything worse could kill. Each time the treatment failed she got worse, each virus left her immune system less able to fight the next, until they started shaking their heads, leveling long, sorry stares at dreading parents -- which is when Silas started his threats, promising them every torment within his power (and there were many, he would tell them how many) if they couldn't save his little girl. The queen rose sharply and left the room.
Outside, she found a cool white plaster wall to lean against, head back and eyes to the heavens. She was not made for this. There was nothing to maneuver, no convenient meeting to arrange or disaster to thwart that could fix what was killing her child. What good were all her intricately-laid plans to a daughter who wouldn't live to see them? What comfort were Rose's perfect manners and subtle smiles? There was nothing she would not do for her children, but this she could not.
"It's time to go home, Jack." In the lobby she brought a hand to his shoulder, so small and yet halfway to manhood already. He'd turned fourteen last month. He hadn't wanted a party; he had never had one without Michelle and God help anyone who tried to make him start. So Rose planned it without him, and when the time came, he succumbed to her will. He played his part. Jack had always understood the need to uphold appearances.
"Now? But I was going to see Michelle-"
"And when she is well, you'll see her." In the end that proved truer than she could imagine, but then it was a cruel kindness. The flaw in loving your own flesh and blood with so much passion is that you forget, sometimes, that though they came from you, they are not you. "There will be cameras outside. You remember what I said?"
"We have to be strong- for her."
"For us, Jack. There is only you and I now; do not for a moment imagine otherwise."
Jack is twenty-four now and she doesn't always protect him. Some lessons he'll need, painful or not. She slaps him when he tells her this is who I am, as if it matters who any of them really are, and she pulls him close afterward only because it hurts her to hurt him, not because she's sorry. But when he has a problem with Katrina Ghent, she handles it. When he chooses a bride on his own, she throws him an engagement party fit for the king he will become. She encourages Silas to include him in Shepherd's trial, and when he leaves them at breakfast together she is confident her son will finally find his way.
Treason is, of course, not part of the plan. But she is not thwarted so easily.
She comes to Silas well-armed with sleek black nylons and a coy smile. At fifty-one she still wields her sexuality like a paring knife, and when she's laid bare the right nerve, she strikes. "Jack..."
"Oh, forget Jack."
"No. He's in hiding from you."
"So he should be."
"He's your son... who once you held in the palm of your hand, whose laughter was God's greatest gift."
"Not anymore."
"Jack is a surety under this family's legacy. He lives, or the crown dies with you."
"Lucky I don't die."
"I built this country with you. I bound it to our family and name. You may have the will, but I maximize your effect. And tomorrow will be your greatest hour--and you need at least one smile by your side that isn't trying to hold back the tears. So Jack will stand beside you; he will not be arrested, and he will not be harmed. You will acknowledge him, and you will do this for me."
"And if I don't?"
"You'll find yourself standing alone."
"...If he behaves, I won't cut his throat."
She eyes her husband, knowing victory when she tastes it. This is what her power is for. Finding the moment, that singular point in time when life or fate or God requires her to be the hinge, and when it comes, she decides how the world turns. In her children's favor, in her kingdom's, and she thinks, ultimately, in her husband's.
She cannot imagine regretting this. Tomorrow, she will not have to imagine.
[last chunk of dialogue © canon]