The Deceit of Tongues

by N M Zoltack

  The first thing Rosalynne noticed as she moved to stand behind the altar was that the hair on the back of Noll’s head had been coated by blood. With trembling fingers, she tried to free the knots from his hair when she felt a terrible gash. Had a stair caused it? She would have to ask how bloody the stairs were. For some reason, she did not think even hitting one’s head hard against a step could cause such a wound.

  After closing her eyes and taking a few breaths to steady herself, Rosalynne opened her eyes and lifted her brother’s surcoat. She could not quite tell, but was that…

  Gently, she had Wilfrid help to lay her brother flat on his stomach. Now, she eased up his surcoat. There, high on his back, just beneath his shoulders, were bruises.

  With trembling hands, she hovered her palms above them. Yes, those bruises could very well be from hands. From force. From a…

  “Push,” she murmured. “He was pushed. The prince was murdered.”

  Slowly, carefully, without dare giving into her emotions, Rosalynne lowered and adjusted his surcoat. Then, she had the guard shift Noll onto his back once more. The white blanket covering the altar beneath him was nearly on the floor at this point.

  The door to the chapel opened. Wilfrid drew his sword, and the vicar hissed at him, but it was only Thorley with Tabes.

  Rosalynne darted around the altar and knelt down to accept the dog into her arms, but Tabes ignored her and jumped onto Noll, licking his master’s face.

  She lost the fight then, tears streaming down her face. Even the vicar had to wipe his eyes.

  “Wilfrid, go and fetch my sister,” she said in a soft but firm voice. “Bring her here.”

  Wilfrid bowed and left.

  Rosalynne stood there, rooted to the spot, head down. She was struggling to feel nothing and was failing miserably. Anger, fear, worry, but mostly, she felt only sorrow.

  Who would dare do such a terrible wicked, cruel thing to the innocent that had been Prince Noll?

  Eventually, Wilfrid returned. Alone.

  “Where is my sister?” Rosalynne demanded.

  “She is nowhere to be found. We have searched—”

  “Find her! Find her now!” Rosalynne demanded, screaming, wailing even after the guards had finally relented and left her.

  Rosalynne knelt down and collapsed to the ground. Noll was murdered. Her father was dead. His previous queen’s son was dead. So much death lately and for what? Why? Had they done something wrong? Were they being punished for some reason?

  Was her sister all right or had she been murdered too?

  Slowly, Rosalynne forced herself to stand. She walked over to her brother and stroked his hair.

  “Do not worry,” she murmured to him. “Just rest in peace and know this. I will not rest myself until your murderer is found. I promise you this.”

  3

  Princess Vivian Rivera

  Princess Vivian Rivera was miserable. Downright miserable. And she certainly did not feel like a princess. All she wanted to do was stop. She didn’t want to continue onward. She wasn’t even certain where they were going.

  It wasn’t so much that she wished to have arrived already. Vivian just wanted to slow down. She wanted to catch her breath. She wanted her racing thoughts to stop.

  She wanted to feel.

  So much had happened in such a short amount of time, and she could hardly make sense of it all.

  “Can we stop this horse now?” Vivian griped.

  Behind her, the servant Ulric Cooper grumbled.

  “Why not?” she added. “I’m hungry. You have to be too. The horse probably is as well.”

  “No.”

  “Why are you refusing me?” She put her hands on her hips, which for most on horseback, that would not be the easiest of feats. For Vivian who could jump on a horse while riding sidesaddle, it was simple. Besides, at times, Vivian’s hands seemed attached to her hips.

  “Because,” was the servant’s simple response.

  “I am your princess!”

  “And I am your guard,” he retorted.

  “I hate you,” she muttered.

  “I am fine with that,” he returned. “As long as you are hating me, you are alive.”

  Alive. Yes. Vivian was alive. Her father wasn’t. Her brother wasn’t. Was her sister, the queen? Everything had been such a blur. The screaming, the crying… Vivian had almost been shocked to realize that the case of the chaos had been her brother’s death.

  “How are you certain my brother was killed?” she asked suddenly. “How had he died? An arrow? A slice from a sword? A…” Words failed her, and she blinked back sudden tears.

  “Do you promise to not be upset?” he asked.

  “I can make no guarantees about my emotions about the moment,” she said dryly.

  “Fair enough.” The servant hesitated, and she could feel his body posture shift as he straightened in the saddle.

  “Tell me,” she pleaded.

  “I was at the gathering. I saw when your brother left the balcony. I thought that he might be wanting to try and train some more. We haven’t since you found out about it, just so you know.”

  “But you wanted to train him then.”

  “I wanted to make sure he did not hurt himself,” Ulric said, but it sounded to Vivian that he was hedging.

  “Go on,” she allowed.

  “I could not find him. I looked everywhere. Eventually, I did, but it was the next morning. He was along the side of the castle. His surcoat had lifted and was up around his shoulders, high enough that I could see two bruises on his back.”

  “Handprints?”

  “I don’t see what else they could have been.” She could feel Ulric shrug.

  “Then you went to my room and forced me to leave the castle. I don’t… I didn’t… You should have allowed me to see my sister.” Vivian blinked back hot tears, but the traitors rolled down her cheeks despite herself. At least Ulric could not see her in this sorry state.

  “There was no time.”

  “No time to prepare at all. You are failing at being a guard, Ulric. We have no clothes, no food, no water. How will we survive?”

  “Not all men live in castles, and they survive just fine,” he said dryly.

  “Be that as it may, can you survive off the land?”

  “I believe I can.”

  “And you think I am in safer hands with you than in the castle.”

  “As I told you before, the prince was murdered. Your sister has plenty of guards to protect her. You—”

  “I have the worst guard of all who is not a guard in truth.” Vivian shook her head. “Do you know the worst part of all?” she demanded angrily, sadly.

  “That you do not have your necklaces?” he asked sarcastically.

  It would be too awkward for her to hit him while sitting before him on the saddle, so Vivian hoped to remember to slap him at a later occasion.

  “That my sister will be worried and fear me dead,” Vivian said crossly.

  “I am sorry for that,” Ulric said, “but that may prove to be a blessing.”

  “How can you say such a thing?” she cried.

  “If the person who killed your brother is targeting the Riveras, if they think you already dead…”

  “I will be safe,” Vivian said slowly. “You thought of this already.”

  “I have.”

  “Then, you must have realized this means that I cannot return home.”

  “To the castle? Certainly not.”

  “You had no right—”

  “You will return one day,” he said.

  “Oh, yes?” she muttered, not appreciating him interrupting her in the slightest.

  “Once the guards at the castle locate and apprehend your brother’s murderer.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “But who knows how long that will take, and if the murderer does find a way past the guards to kill my sister? What then?”

  “Then, you may wish to ditch the name Rivera and become someone else. Forg
et that you ever were a princess. Move on.”

  “That is not how I want to live my life!” she protested.

  “If you wish to live, that may be be the only way,” he said grimly. “Do not worry. I will stay with you the entire journey.”

  “Joy,” Vivian muttered.

  4

  Queen Sabine Grantham

  Queen Sabine Grantham paced the room as she had all throughout the night. Her mother’s decisive act to attack and then push the prince down a flight of stairs to kill him had been entirely rash.

  No, not rash at all. Her mother had been trying to coax Sabine into killing the king’s heirs ever since the king had died. Sabine had refused to abide by her mother’s demand, and so, her mother had taken the matter into her own hands.

  “Won’t you stop already?” her mother snapped.

  Sabine’s mother was sitting on the edge of her bed. Neither of the women had changed out of their attire from the previous day. As soon as the deed had been done, the two had rushed back to her mother’s quarters. If it hadn’t been for Rosalynne and her worthless speech to the people, they would not have been able to get away with this. Everyone else within the castle had gone to the assembly, so no one had been around to witness them. They could have stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at the prince’s lifeless body and laughed for a long while, and still, no one would have known.

  Sabine had not done that. She had not gone near the top of the stairs. Her mind was already imagining all of the ways Noll’s body could have appeared, and she hated that her mind would torment her so. Sabine had not been the one to kill him, and yet, she felt guilty all the same.

  “Do cease now,” her mother scolded impatiently.

  Sabine held up her hand. She was trying to think, and pacing helped her focus her ideas.

  “I do not understand why you seem to be so upset,” her mother continued. “It is not as if you have blood on your hands. I, on the other hand, do. I am rather furious that you forced me into this.”

  “Me? Force you?” Sabine whirled around and stalked toward her mother, wagging a long, thin finger. “You were the one who forced me onto the king!”

  “As if you needed much convincing!” Her mother threw back her head and laughed. “Get your finger out of my face. When will you accept that you are your mother’s daughter? We are the same, you and I.”

  “Not at all,” Sabine muttered, but she did know it to be true.

  She sank onto the edge of the bed beside her mother. Their hands clasped, and her mother patted their joined hands. The two could pass for sisters, although the white in her mother’s blond hair aged her some. Both shared blue eyes and slim figures with wide hips, perfect for childbearing.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Sabine said. “If anyone suspected us, they would have been here by now. Besides, I can denounce any who claim us responsible and have them hanged for treason against the crown.”

  “‘Not at all,’ she says. See, my dear? You are just like me.”

  “Yes, yes,” Sabine muttered.

  “When will you leave the room?” Her mother withdrew her hand. “If you remain here for too long, people will become suspicious.”

  Sabine had heard the cries and screams for about an hour now. Honestly, she had thought that the body would have been discovered long before now, but she supposed that this side of the castle was blocked by trees. Not many came by this way.

  “I will leave shortly, but honestly, Mother, it seems as if you do not wish for me to be around.”

  “I wish for you to be the queen that I wanted you to be. You cannot be queen here in my room. Now, go.”

  Sabine narrowed her eyes. “I will go when I am ready to. I need to know what other impetuous move you have ready to set into motion.”

  “Impetuous?” Her mother brought a hand to her chest and blinked her eyelashes. “When do I ever make an impetuous move?”

  “All the time,” Sabine said dryly.

  “Why I never! Not at all, my dear child, not at all. Every move I make is calculated and precise.”

  “This is not a recipe for baking tarts, Mother,” Sabine said.

  After her husband died, Sabine’s mother baked tarts all the time, carefully measuring out each ingredient two or even three times to ensure everything was perfect. Sabine had never understood her need for exactness like that.

  “This is life and death,” Sabine continued.

  “Precisely. It is about life, your life. I will not have that calculating Rosalynne steal the throne out from under you.”

  “Instead, you would have me steal the throne from her.”

  “You are the ruling queen, remember, my dear? You are not stealing anything. You were given the crown.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There are not buts in life, not for those on top. That is where you are, on top, and you will stay there so long as no one suspects us.”

  Suspects you.

  “How very convenient, Mother. I noticed that you neglected to answer my inquiry. What do you have planned for next?”

  Her mother shrugged and held up her hands as if innocent. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “That is a lie,” Sabine said through her gritted teeth. “I do not think there should be secrets between us.”

  “No? None? Then, perhaps you would care to explain—”

  “I do not have to explain anything to you.” Sabine graciously rose to her feet. “I will go and find proof to assuage your fears that anyone suspects you of wrongdoing.”

  “I have no fears,” her mother protested, but Sabine was already out the door.

  Sabine stalked away. Leaving in a huff was perhaps not the most mature of acts, but Sabine was queen, not her mother, and her mother had better start remembering that fact.

  5

  Sir Edmund Hill

  The knight hardly felt as if he had earned his shield as Sir Edmund Hill placed the prized possession at the end of his bed. A guard was a terrible duty. Necessary, yes, even Edmund could admit that, but he longed to truly make a difference in the world. Atlan here was, in a word, boring. Edmund hadn’t become a knight so that he could spend the rest of his life so close to the castle. While it was true that many knights solely wished to guard the castle and nothing else, that wasn’t Edmund.

  No. He had become a knight so that he could see the world. The pyramid of Maloyan or the one at Olac. The Olacic Mountains. The Kiamur Jungle. He hadn’t even been northward a few day’s journey to see the Stokeford Swamp.

  And here he was, stuck in Atlan, perhaps for the rest of his life.

  “Maybe I should ask to be reassigned,” Edmund muttered as he began the tedious task of removing his armor. He hadn’t bothered with every piece. There was no need. If he had worn the entire suit, he would have needed to locate a squire to help him out.

  Jurian Hansen, the knight lying down in the bed next to Edmund’s in the bunker, rolled over. “Want to go back to the marketplace?”

  “No. I want to visit or defend Etian or—”

  “Then perhaps you should have been a sailor.”

  “I could try to be one of the privateers.”

  Privateers were special guards who sought to keep the Vast Waters safe from any threats, most noticeably pirates. Years ago, when the Hus had ruled Tenoch back before the Lis, the reign had been marked by many tears and much bloodshed. The Hus had basically been pirates themselves, and the amount of slavery that had run rampant from Tiapan island especially had been vicious and unseen since or before, as far as Edmund knew.

  The Hus reigned only nineteen years. The Hus had only one daughter. When her parents had been murdered, some say by the princess herself, she was forced to choose a husband as she needed an heir and quickly before someone could take her out. She married a Li, but the two had no heirs. In fact, she died in childbirth, and the babe came out blue and never took a breath.

  As such, the Lis took over rather peacefully, mostly because the Li she had married,
a king Edmund could not recall the name of, had already established the privateers. The Hus legacy of tyranny ended almost as quickly as it had begun. The slaves were returned to their homeland, although a great deal of them had perished at the hands of the Hus, and several more did not survive the long journey back to their island.

  “Have you ever been on a ship?” Jurian asked.

  “No, but what does that matter?” Edmund countered. “I do not have to be the one to command it.”

  “Command isn’t even the proper term.”

  “Command, control, steer…” Edmund waved his hand. At least then I could see—”

  “The waves. The water. How wonderful. Do you know how long it takes to travel to one of the islands? Not weeks. Months.”

  “Vincana is not that far away,” Edmund protested.

  “I don’t trust them,” Jurian said.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t really say. Haven’t met one, but they don’t really belong here. And the islands, they’re separate too. I know most think the king did a wonderful thing by joining all of Dragoona together under Tenoch Proper, but it’s only a matter before the world falls apart.”

  “Do you truly think so?”

  “I do.”

  “But if the queen—either of them—were to marry someone from Vincana—”

  Jurian waved his hand. “I’m telling you. Neither of them will wear the crown for long.”

  “Do not talk like that!” Edmund glanced around. Some could construe their topic as treason.

  “It’s the truth. Every so many years, someone new is sitting the throne. It’s not anything new.”

  “Before, when the dragons—”

  “The dragons are dead, and they aren’t reviving. It’s been, what, almost fifteen-hundred years since the last dragon still had breath. What happened while the dragons flew doesn’t matter. We can’t go back to that way of life.”

  “To when the people were good and kept in check.”