by J M Fraser
“Albus will marry her this very day.”
The news buckled his legs. He settled back onto the cot and waited for his racing heart to slow.
His brother had summoned him to a wedding, and Maynya had been carrying out a macabre wedding ritual on the hill. He should have put two and two together. But why did the woman’s bonding with Albus stab into his heart? Adala’s death must have unhinged him. He couldn’t imagine a more ridiculous fit of infatuation than the one he now suffered.
Teasha set a hand on his shoulder. “Is something wrong, Quintus?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.” He brushed past her.
* * *
Quintus shaded his eyes and hurried past the ripe odor of livestock in a nearby pen. The afternoon had grown chillier despite a bright sun. The notion of returning for his cloak and another whiff of Teasha’s lemony perfume almost tempted him back to the bungalow.
He wrapped his arms around himself and continued across a vacant marching ground separating the last dwelling at the edge of town from the palace, a ridiculously presumptuous name for the makeshift wooden building housing the royal chambers.
Albus and his bands of thieves—no better term for the marauders—had been cutting through tribe after tribe, taking their land, raping their women, and stealing houses, roads, monuments. They’d never found the skill to build anything of substance on their own. The most impressive structure in the area, a foundry he’d noticed when Maynya struggled up the hill, had been constructed by the latest fallen ones, a hardy tribe of laborers who now stoked its fires night and day as slaves.
Quintus, too, had often led bands of soldiers who might have been likened to marauders by the innocents who strayed across their path. Yet he saw a critical difference. His men faced a greater power, an army bent on pushing the natives of Virtus east to the sea—a tribe boasting frightening inventions, such as the fierce metal beast, the locomotive, he’d seen at the western border. Quintus and his men served as defenders, not invaders.
Even on those rare occasions when they managed to seize a territory instead of surrendering another slice of their own—Virtus crawled like a snake, shrinking in the west as it expanded to the east—they allowed the defeated men some measure of freedom, and they left the women unharmed. He’d kill the soldier who so much as thought about touching a woman against her will. Just ask Gaius, the bastard who took Adala’s life.
The reminder stirred more ice into the wind. Quintus hurried to the door of the palace.
He nodded to three soldiers standing checkpoint, but he surrendered only his visible weapons. The fools didn’t frisk him. Then he strode across a great room crowded with scoundrels, rakes, and whores, the profiteers of war. Many sat drinking at a long table, echoing randy songs and raucous laughter off the walls. Others made merry at a piano, while a few had already begun unlacing maidens’ bodices in the hall’s shadowy corners. Any excuse for an orgy. In this case, the inexplicable wedding of a king and a slave.
He slowed to endure one more inept soldier’s careless search before passing through a door to the next chamber, a quieter one, a war room where maps had been tacked to the walls and spread across a large table in the center. At the far end of that table, he found Albus on a high throne, puffing his chest. The normally slovenly man had dressed like a dandy this day, his dark hair wrapped into a diamond-speckled braid, a purple, star-studded robe thrown over his shoulders, a jeweled crown set upon his thick head, and gold chains cascading from his neck.
The maidservant attending Albus seemed as young as Teasha, nineteen at best, but far less innocent. She’d painted her lips, shaded her eyes, and unlaced much of her bodice. She swayed her hips when she started forward to greet him.
The king waved her off.
She scurried out the door with barely concealed excitement, no doubt eager to dive into the debauchery on the other side, body and soul.
Alone now but for a soldier at the door, the two men stared each other down. Three years had passed since Quintus had last seen his brother, but he had no interest in exchanging niceties. “You’ve pulled me from the front so I might serve as a guest in a sham of a wedding?”
“Best man, Quintus, best man!” Albus leapt off the throne and rushed over to embrace him. “It’s so good to see you!”
Quintus endured his brother’s liquored breath.
After the hug, they stepped back and gazed at each other in silence. Words had never passed easily from one to the other. Quintus noticed hints of his brother’s earlier physical charms—an ever-youthful face, dark, curly hair, eyes capable of melting a princess—but the steady creep of sloth had already compromised the man’s handsomeness with an extra chin and too large a gut.
Albus was the first to turn away. He shook a fist at the soldier standing guard. “Get out! Can two brothers not share a moment alone?”
The guard hastened out of the room and shut the door behind him.
“You need better help,” Quintus said. “These soldiers don’t have your back.”
Albus clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I have my own back, plus a brother at my side now, and the grandest of plans.” He lowered his voice and for good reason. Walls within the shifty kingdom had many ears. “I’m defeating Maynya in this sham of a wedding.”
Another pang troubled Quintus, thickening his throat to the point he almost couldn’t speak. Though no less irrational, his emotions were becoming harder to shake off. “You’re defeating a wench? A simple slave?”
His brother scowled. He started pacing the floor with hands clasped behind him. “A simple slave? Why, yes, she was captured and thrown into the marriage pool a year ago. I suppose, by that definition, she’s a simple slave.” He raised a hammy fist and spread two fingers. “Twice Nigellus sold her, and twice he had to take her back the next morning, paying full refund each time!”
Quintus had trouble suppressing a smile at the news the bride master had gotten the worst of a transaction. Nigellus had long been renowned as a cheat and a poacher, but Albus blindly trusted him despite the carnage he’d caused. Along what should have been a peaceful northern front, several Mystic raids had been triggered as retaliation for this man’s thefts of women, leading to death and destruction on both sides of the truce line.
Albus waved his arms. “We promise satisfaction or money returned. This woman gave no satisfaction, only the scratches of a lioness and bite marks…not to mention the nightmares. One of her unfortunate husbands hanged himself two days after he brought her back.”
The reference to nightmares gave Quintus pause. The unpleasant dream Teasha interrupted had been another in a long line, some good, some bad, and most occurring well before he ever saw the sketch of Maynya or met her in the flesh. She hadn’t cast the evil eye on him to disturb an afternoon nap. They had a history.
“Thirteen escapes!” Albus railed. “Each time, this simple slave was rumored to be the planner, the ringleader, the instigator, the witch behind the schemes! We put her in the stocks, we flogged her in the square, we beat her to within an inch of her life, and now the peasants are riled up. They complain we’re abusing their saint!”
Quintus’s heart drummed with pride, not so much for Maynya’s actions but the fierce determination he’d seen in her eyes, despite the tortures she’d endured. What had she done to him? She’d steered him like a siren into a shipwreck of emotions.
Albus grabbed a vase of flowers and threw it against the wall. “I wanted to burn her alive. We should have nailed her to a cross and lit a bonfire!”
Quintus’s heart pounded harder. “I saw her dragging a cross up a hill.”
“I’m toying with her! Phineas advised against anything worse.”
“Phineas?”
Albus had another vase in his hands. He stopped short and turned. The rage in his features eased. “You’ve been gone too long, brother. Phineas serves as my head of state now.”
The appointment would have served as a slap in the face if Quintus cared. Phinea
s was no more than a common raider, one of a dozen thieves who stole brides from Sanctimonia when they weren’t too busy scheming to steal from the palace coffers.
For centuries, fractious tribal states scattered across this vast continent shared a single trait. They embraced command structures based on bloodline. Quintus was the second son. He should have been appointed head of state, his brother’s right-hand man, the moment their father died three years earlier. But Albus had chosen to leave the position vacant until what, he found the least suitable man?
No matter. Quintus’s second greatest desire—after this perplexing Maynya/Carla infatuation—was to steer clear of this madhouse of a palace and get back to the army at the earliest possible moment.
“Maynya has a following,” Albus said. “Our foolish peasants worship the ground she walks on, and Phineas says the death of a martyr might incite their revolt.”
“He provides good counsel then. Look what happened in Barcavia a decade ago.”
Albus arched his brows. “Ah, but I have a plan. Shall I tell you the story of the magnanimous king?”
The ugly gleam in the man’s eye sent a chill down the back of Quintus’s neck. “Save your stories for Phineas.”
“Oh, but you must hear this one! The king became smitten with a saintly slave, married her, and shared his kingdom. Then one day, the poor bastard suffered a grievous loss. His lovely wife died in childbirth.”
Quintus tried to control the twitch in the hand closest to the knife at his calf.
“Do you know what the unwashed masses did? They worshipped the widowed king like a god, rewarding him with devotion for making their beloved queen’s final days such happy ones.” Albus dropped the vase he’d been holding, scattering fragments across the slate floor in a hundred directions. “Beautiful things break so easily.”
Quintus’s keen awareness of his knife intensified. The temptation to end this man, Abel rising up against Cain, nearly overwhelmed him.
To hell with the masses. How had a mysterious woman managed to clutch his heart with so strong a grip he’d kill his own brother to save her? The western front would have to wait until he discovered the answer. “Allow me to stay a fortnight or two, Albus. I’d enjoy watching this fairy tale of yours play out.”
Albus elbowed him. “I knew you had a hint of mischief inside of you. We are brothers after all.”
“So they say.”
“From the moment I first heard about this proud filly, I’ve wanted to break her in my bed. You can have a go at her, too, if you like.”
The bubbling blood in Quintus’s veins drowned the simple moral code he’d followed all his life. He’d never lied, stolen, cheated, or plundered. He’d never committed murder. Not until now.
He bent for his knife, but two soldiers burst into the room before he could whip it out of its sheath and plunge the cold blade into his brother’s heart.
“The ceremony is beginning,” said one.
“You’re needed at the tent, sire,” said the other.
Albus grinned. “I’ve prepared a sacrifice to make this occasion all the more auspicious, brother. We recaptured one of the women Maynya set free.”
CHAPTER 30
Waiting for her groom
Dusty wind fluttered the upper folds of the wedding tent like a billowing sail. Maynya looked beyond toward the foundry’s plume of smoke. The breeze blew it straight north toward the forest. She closed her eyes, imagining the ability to spread wings and soar to the highest branches.
But she landed where she’d been standing, flanked on either side by two matrons. Each had a firm grip on one of her arms.
Maynya gritted her teeth and accepted her role yet again. She could never leave the brides abandoned without a champion. She scoured all fantasies of flight from her mind and focused on her immediate goals. Get through this ceremony. Play the gracious bride to the masses. Find some way to avoid sex with her horrid husband without getting herself beaten to death in retribution.
Her pudgy fiancé, warlord of a pitiful state, stood flanked by his soldiers at the tent’s opening. He stared at her with brooding eyes. No hint of warmth, even on their wedding day.
She flinched.
The king broke eye contact and went inside. Guests followed him in, few of whom she recognized. Slaves didn’t mingle with royalty. After the wedding she might come to know some of these people, but she doubted for very long. She had no delusions about the length of her remaining life.
She shifted her attention to a soldier lingering outside the tent flap. Unlike her despicable groom, this man held kindness in his eyes. They’d met ever so briefly when he came to her aide with a pitcher of water during her trial up the hill.
She’d rejected him. Had she made a mistake? Her temples pounded.
Something about this man summoned the faintest whisper of a memory, from another life, perhaps, one most certainly brighter than this one, but…ending in darkness? Yes, that was the sense his return gaze inspired, and then something else, recognition so overpowering her legs trembled to the point of collapse. She loved this man. He’d provided shelter at his home, frolicked with her in the snow, and told his life story in the quiet of his bedroom.
What was his name? Surely he’d find a way to stop this wedding.
Oh Lord, what was the man’s name?
Hers came to mind, instead. “I am Carla!”
The soldier’s face became a mask of confusion.
A blow to her face came hard and swift. “You speak in tongues now, you fool?” The maiden on her left, a dark-haired, middle-aged woman glared at her the way a mother might scold a wayward child. “You Mystic witches bring your own troubles down on your heads with your foolhardiness.”
Maynya saw stars. Her cheekbone throbbed. “I am not a witch.” And she said so in the correct language this time. “Ego sum non a veneficus.” What dialect did she babble before? What came over her?
“Woe betide any witches in this kingdom,” the matron said.
Two of the bridal pool women began crying. Maynya met their eyes and tried to smile reassurance. The effort might have failed. Elsewhere, angry peasants muttered behind their hands. She avoided their gazes so as not to encourage a rebellion, one the capital’s heavily armed soldiers would surely put down in an instant. Finally, she settled her attention on the gentry, not one of whom seemed bothered that the king’s bride had been slapped hard enough to bring tears. These wealthy women despised her, and the men no doubt wished they had fresh brides of their own to beat.
She scanned the crowd for the soldier again. Couldn’t find him. He must have gone into the tent with the others.
Maynya’s disorientation intensified. The sun seemed to pale. The ground wobbled beneath her feet.
Another man caught her attention. Deeply tanned, dark-haired, and handsome, he stood taller than any in the gathering. She tried to gauge his age, at first thought him young, but recalculated upon studying his eyes. This man was well advanced in years despite his vigor. She had trouble unlocking her gaze from his until he did it for her by ducking into the tent.
A flutist began a wedding ballad, and the matrons led Maynya inside. One of them released her arm, freeing her to slip a hand into a slit pocket of her gown. She touched a few possessions she’d brought for luck—a goose feather, a tiny doll whittled from wood, and a quatrant—the two-faced coin serving as currency in Virtus.
Guests crowded on either side of the aisle, a mishmash of indistinguishable faces, too many in such a small space, sucking the air out of it. She struggled to breathe, her temples pulsed, and a gust of wind pounded against the tent as if in response. She tried to focus on the groom waiting twenty paces ahead, but her blood ran cold at the sight of the bound sacrifice on the altar behind him. Not the traditional pig or goat. No, far worse than that. A young, red-haired woman in a white shift twisted against her bindings. A gag muffled her cries.
“Abelia!” Her stomach lurched. She’d helped this poor girl escape two days earlier. M
aynya shot desperate glances around the tent. Surely someone would put a stop to this. Then she saw the soldier who teased her memory outside, the man named… “Brewster!”
The soldier froze. He stared at her with as perplexed a gaze as anyone could summon—the same tortured confusion she must have reflected back to him from her own eyes.
A blow came hard across her face again. “Be still, woman, and thank the gods you aren’t the one on the altar.”
The matron’s tone threatened greater violence. She wielded a bamboo cane in her free hand.
The soldier clenched his fists and stepped forward, clearly ready to do battle with matrons large and small. But another cry from Abelia distracted his attention to the king, Maynya’s groom, who stood several feet to his left. The glare he cast in Albus’s direction seemed capable of destroying the man on the spot.
She could only hope.
The king pulled a long, curved dagger from a scabbard at his waist and approached the bound victim. Maynya opened her mouth to shout again, but the cry caught in her throat when she noticed the soldier gripping a knife in his hand as well. He took a step toward Albus with murder in his eyes.
None of the onlookers made a move to stop him. Perhaps they thought the soldier and the king acted in league, planning to kill Abelia together. But Maynya knew better. This soldier was a good man.
The matrons dragged Maynya forward. She dug her feet into the ground and struggled to stay rooted to the spot, her temples pulsing and heart pounding in sync with the flute. The king’s dark-haired, forever frowning sister glared at her. Orelea. A sadistic woman who’d earned the name Lady Sting among those slaves who’d gotten in the way of her whip.
Maynya looked away, only to fall under the spell of a tall stranger’s eyes, the vigorous older man she’d noticed outside the tent. He nodded.
As the wind gusted stronger against the tent, a surge of strength boiled up inside of her, stoked by a fire blasting from her very soul.