The Poet King

by Ilana C. Myer

  “Who is she?”

  What made it amusing, if you thought about it, was that Etherell Lyr took no interest in other women. She had found nothing to indicate any inclinations that way. Nor towards any men. He was a model of fidelity, in his indifferent way.

  Elissan Diar had broken from Rianna to make his way to the couple. No doubt to stop them making a scene. The king cared very much for the appearance of things.

  Sendara was crying. She looked every bit her age in that moment, not a day older. “I’ll kill her!”

  Etherell was making a half-hearted attempt to raise her to her feet, but she pummeled him with her fists. He didn’t look concerned, however, or sorry. He was calm. He was likely thinking back, to the exact instant when someone might have slipped a woman’s handkerchief in his jacket pocket. The edge protruding just a bit, so it would show. There was even a chance it might drift to the floor as he was dancing.

  Rianna had very little time. She glanced around for it and there—yes, there by one of the buffet tables was the lime green jacket. She moved slowly, trying to be unobtrusive. A problem: She’d had to make herself spectacular for tonight, but also needed to blend with the crowd when necessary. There was no such thing, she thought irritably, as a perfect plan.

  The king had called to the musicians to resume their playing. Sendara had resorted to quiet sobbing, and allowed only her father to come near. Etherell Lyr lingered there—at the moment, his life depended on it. On convincing them of his innocence.

  There was still time.

  When Rianna reached Syme Oleir, who seemed not even to notice the commotion, she bent over him. “Syme.”

  He looked up. Dulled eyes looked past her, as if into a nightmare.

  She gripped his shoulder. “You’re coming with me.”

  * * *

  A KIND of madness had driven her since their return from the hunting lodge. It seemed that everything that had come before, all she’d done, had been a game. Now it was time, past time, to stop playing.

  Better yet: to make others dance to her tune.

  Somewhere in the tunnels beneath the castle—carved in its limestone bedrock, older than any remembered king—was Elissan Diar’s weapon. And this was somehow connected to Syme Oleir. She did not understand how this could be so, but she put it together. Working backward. Syme’s magic, used to torture Marlen. The Fool’s ring on the stairs. And there was the king’s strange attachment to his Fool, which only made sense if Syme Oleir was more than he appeared.

  An old tale had given her an idea. She took a satin purse, stabbed it with a pin. Then filled it with flour, the coarsest she could find—too fine, and it would spew like smoke and be useless.

  These tunnels, extensive and complex, had intimidated her. She had feared getting lost. The flour would mark her trail.

  In the homespun dress of a servant she explored through the night, candle in hand. Night after night. The flour sufficed only a few times, for by the next day it would be eaten away by ants and mice. Rianna wanted permanence. A system. She found another way to mark the tunnels. With a brush and a small pot of malachite eye powder she drew a small, glittering green “X” on the limestone at various turns, just below eye level. Signs to herself: I was here. Or she would draw an arrow, to indicate the way back to the stairs.

  More than once, she wondered if her mother had ever ventured down here in her work as the king’s spy, and if so, what she had done to find her way.

  Her earliest explorations led to storerooms. Jars of oil and wine filled more than a few of these. That was only the start to what she found. One room was devoted to sacks of imported rice. Another to spices, rare and precious as gold—the scent of that room made her mouth water. And another, yet, to bales of fabric: wool, muslin, jacquard, velvet, satin, and more, of every imaginable shade.

  Last and most interesting to her were the storerooms for weapons. There were several but she only took the time to explore one. A rack of spears against one wall; swords against another. An assemblage of daggers. She examined these and found one she liked; it was small, well-balanced, with a leather-covered grip that made it comfortable to hold. The blade nearly black and whorled with cobalt blue. It was filmed with dust; she used rapeseed oil from another storage room to clean it. Near the hilt was emblazoned a gold sigil: a hawk, its talons dug into a hare. It was unknown to her. Whatever dynasty it might have signified was past.

  The deeper tunnels had a strong smell of chalk and dust, like a cave burrowed in the earth. As the nights went by, as she dared go deeper, she found other things. There was the room that contained nothing but complete suits of armor. They stood like warriors at a vigil. One hundred stood there, at the least. This room unnerved her, silly as she knew that was, and she did not care to explore it.

  That was the last of the storerooms. Afterward saw her passing other chambers. Most were bare cells. Others, farther in, were furnished. There was a room with a long table and chairs. The chair at the head large and grand, intricately carved, inlaid with gold. Spread on the table before it, a parchment; upon inspection, a map. But she could not make sense of the lands it showed; it had no territories or landmarks she recognized, nor could she seem to read the place names. The letters shifted, evaded comprehension.

  Beside the map was an inkwell and pen, a gold chalice and decanter. Everything was thick with dust, the wine in the cup like powdered cinnamon. It occurred to her that insects ought to have been attracted to it, but there were none.

  She came to a room with rich furnishings of blue velvet and silver thread, all centered around a great canopied, curtained bed. The curtains were drawn. At the foot of the bed was a chest. On the wall, a landscape painting that showed a series of islands on a misted sea. Upon one island, the nearest one, was a castle.

  Rianna had stepped inside, curious. But as she neared the curtained bed, a sickness welled in her stomach. She knew a warning when she felt one—whether it came of instinct, or something else. She had a sense of something old and watchful, and shut that door behind her when she left. Marking the door with two “X” symbols: Stay away.

  On the night she went deepest yet into the tunnels, as she was marking a new turn, she heard something. She froze. Each night she came down here, she was risking discovery. And though she had tried to think of a clever excuse if she was discovered, there was very little that could explain her being here.

  What she was hearing, she realized, was music. Her heart thudded. It was a harp, but was all wrong. No way to explain it other than that: it sounded wrong to her. Was like a fine knife gliding through the sinews of her body, delicately, twisting under her skin.

  She followed the sound. Quietly, staying close against the wall. It took some time, but she had a feeling this was what she had been seeking all along. No matter how the strains of the harp made her want to turn and run the other way.

  She came at last to a door. The harp was loudest here.

  In the same moment, she heard footsteps. Someone coming up behind her.

  She blew out her candle and sped her pace, passed the closed door, turned a corner. Flattened herself against the wall. When she heard Etherell’s voice, she started shuddering, and hardly breathed. Her hand went to her knife, though she had few illusions. Etherell Lyr was practiced at killing.

  “Open the door,” said Etherell. A banging sound. “Syme. Come. That’s enough.”

  The music halted.

  After a moment she heard the squeal of hinges. Syme muttered something. Etherell said, “I can’t understand what you think you’re doing there alone. The king won’t like it.”

  Syme spoke tonelessly. “Down here, none sees a monster.”

  “You’re not a monster,” said Etherell. “You’re a servant. Believe I know the difference.” Rianna could hear the grin in his voice. Knew, somehow, what lay unspoken. Those who looked at Etherell Lyr saw his beauty. He saw something else.

  Almost she pitied him then—the first and only time.

  “None b
ut you can open this door,” said Etherell. He sounded like he was reasoning with a child. “You’re not supposed to come in here alone. What if something happened, and we couldn’t get to you?”

  They moved away, and down the corridor, before Rianna could hear if there was a response from the Fool.

  When they’d gone, Rianna tiptoed to the door. It was locked. But there was no keyhole, no sign of a bolt. How, then, was it locked?

  Under the door, shining out in the hall, the glow of green. A light she’d seen before.

  No need to mark the place. She would remember.

  In the days that followed, she had set plans in motion. These plans had led to this moment. A moment that saw her holding her shimmering skirts in one hand, while with the other she kept hold of Syme Oleir. He didn’t protest. Didn’t even seem aware of what they were doing.

  She kept to the edge of the room. Dodged behind guests who were craning to see Sendara, her father, and her lover. No doubt they’d rarely seen such a good show.

  You’re welcome, she thought with a curled lip. She thought, then, of Darien; how he’d loved a good performance. She thought he’d have approved this plan—which did not necessarily mean it was a good one.

  The problem had been, all along, that the Fool was precious to the king. If he was not near the king, he was under the eye of Etherell Lyr. Rianna had had to think of a means to distract them both. And long enough for her purpose.

  They passed the musicians, who bravely played on. Past the great hearth with its crackling fire. For the first time she saw how Elissan Diar had chosen to display the hart’s skull and antlers: above the mantel, for all to see. Bleached pale as ivory. Those sad eyes she remembered—that she could not forget—were gone.

  “Come on, Syme,” she urged, the one time he hesitated. They stood at the door that opened onto the steep staircase to the tunnels. “You first.” She had to prod him forward. “Go on.”

  Her candle and tinder were there on a shelf where she’d concealed them. For a time, they descended without speaking. The music of the ball, the roar of voices, were all they heard awhile. Likewise the clamor of the kitchens. With time and as the dark increased, so did the silence. By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, all they could hear was the highest pitch of a woodwind as if it played alone.

  “Now,” she said. “You’re going to take me to the door only you can open. You know the one.”

  “As my lady commands,” he said, and she startled. Every time Syme Oleir spoke as a man would, it came as a surprise.

  In silence he led the way. By now the last remaining sounds from above had faded.

  Elissan Diar might be looking for her. For both of them. Once he noticed the Fool was missing, he might raise all the castle to a search.

  Her heart sped at the thought. They had reached the door. Syme touched his hand to the door handle. His palm glowed green, to match the light beneath the door, and it opened.

  Rianna had had no idea what to expect. But just as she was attempting to grasp what she saw, she remembered: only Syme could open the door. She shut it quickly behind her. There. Now she had time to look, and consider.

  Before her, at the center of the room, was an iron cage. The height of a man, barely three widths of one. For a wild moment she thought it was Marlen Humbreleigh but no—the figure in the cage was not tall enough for that. What paced within was a creature, glowing green, in the shape of a man. He looked familiar; when he turned to her, Rianna gasped.

  “Come home,” the man pleaded. He gripped the bars.

  “Avan,” she murmured.

  No, no, that was impossible. Her father was in the south. And indeed, the next minute, the figure shifted again. This time, a woman. Lin Amaristoth, looking pensive. Her eyes met Rianna’s eyes. In the soft, melodic voice Rianna remembered, said, “I should never have taken him with me. I’m so sorry.”

  And then it began to change again. Rianna knew what must be next, and turned away. Determined to ignore the creature, at least until she had answers. “Syme,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. In this light, the Fool’s face was green. “What is that thing?”

  Behind her, the voice she’d been expecting.

  “I know what you did. But I left you. I can’t expect that you’d wait.”

  She would not look. The thing was testing her. And if she saw Ned it might break her, even though it wasn’t him. She could break later, in the privacy of her room, when this was over. Assuming she lived through it. Not now.

  The Fool was looking at her with a glazed expression. He took her hands. He seemed desperate for her to understand. “It’s a monster. But as long as I live it’s mine. My monster. I am it, and it is me.”

  “No more riddles,” she said. “Tell me clearly. What is your relationship to this creature?”

  His grip on her hands tightened, his gaze into her eyes intensified as if to convey all he could. He looked exhausted. “To keep it prisoner … costs life,” he said. He spoke haltingly, and she could see he struggled. For Syme Oleir, the business of forming words, clear thoughts, was not what it was for other people. “Slowly, slowly, with time, I feel them leaving me. The years I won’t have. No songs, no love, no life for Syme.”

  “You keep it prisoner,” she said, as it dawned on her. “And at such a cost. But why?”

  “It is a spell,” he said. “If I break the spell—if I let the monster free—Father showed me what would happen. Pain and more pain.” He began to shiver. “Pain and more pain.” His face crumpled. Rianna stared. Then let go his hands, to wrap her arms around his thin frame. He was a child, and alone, and she had not known with what suffering until now.

  From behind her, Ned’s voice. “We are divided by more than mountains now.”

  Remarkable how it knew.

  “What is it, Syme?” she whispered. “This horrible thing. What’s it called?”

  He wept into her shoulder. “Father says … it is a weapon he captured. He calls it an Ifreet.”

  * * *

  WHEN they surfaced, she kept hold of his hand. She’d half expected to encounter a search underway for the two of them. She had a story prepared: that she had found Syme Oleir crying in a corner and tried to help. That she had followed him downstairs, to his favorite spot, to coax him back to the party.

  But no one was looking for them. The dancing went on as before. She let Syme go. As he slipped away, she saw him making for the tray of meat pies as if nothing had happened. Perhaps he’d already forgotten.

  She stood in the entryway to the hall, watching the arcs of dancers: the nimble steps of the men, whirling skirts of the women. The music seemed to have more energy, a quicker tempo.

  In the corner of her eye, a flash. She turned towards it. Down the corridor, out of sight of the dancers, was the peacock from the garden. Its tail like ice and silver. She met its black, depthless eye. Only a moment. And then it moved on, quick and silent, to the next room.

  Rianna might have followed, but something told her she would not find that bird if she went searching for it. She felt a chill.

  Skirts in hand, standing tall, she went looking for Elissan Diar. The hairs at the back of her neck were prickling. Almost she would have preferred to deal with a search party, with interrogation, than this. Whatever this was. A sense of something being—not quite right.

  She went back the way she’d left, past the hearth. Above the mantel, saw the hart’s skull. But not as she’d seen it before. Rianna stopped short to stare. Someone had laid on the skull—as a joke?—a crown of woven ivy leaves. And … now this was strange. Icicles hung from the antlers, from each branch. They caught the lamplight.

  She saw the hearth was dark. The fire had gone out.

  Rianna turned to survey the room. The dancers. Faster and faster they whirled.

  Her eyes seemed to play tricks. One man who passed her, a lord she recognized, danced with a woman in a fashionable purple dress. The next moment, he held a woman in a glacier-white gown. Her s
kin white too, seeming to shine. She cradled his head in long-fingered hands and he was drawn forward, as if they would kiss.

  And then she changed, back to the woman in purple. The man caught her up as the dance required; by the time he set her down, he seemed unaware there had been a change.

  Elsewhere Rianna saw something similar. A young woman dancing with a stout courtier was suddenly paired with a different man; slender and in black, a silver-bound sword at his side. A mask made of black feathers framed his eyes, which were bright red.

  When he vanished to be replaced by the courtier again, the girl looked momentarily dazed. Then resumed as before.

  Rianna pushed through the crowd. She was determined to find Elissan Diar, to demand an explanation.

  As she looked around, she kept meeting the gaze of one of the Chosen: they were positioned at all corners of the room. Still as stone. She thought their eyes burned with a strange intensity, a contrast to their pallor; but maybe she imagined that.

  At last she found Elissan. He danced with a woman in green. The woman’s lips were red, redder than any lip color Rianna had ever seen, as if she had been devouring rare meat. A thicket of reddish hair streamed past her waist. About her eyes, a mask of ivy leaves.

  When Rianna approached, the woman changed. Now she was a pretty young lord’s wife, of about Rianna’s age. Rianna had seen her before, could even recall her name if she bothered to. Rianna tapped her shoulder. With an apprehensive, guilty look, the woman backed away.

  Rianna confronted the king. “What’s going on?”

  He blinked. His lips stretched in an uncertain smile. “Rianna.”

  She took his hand, nudged him to continue the dance. Nothing to be gained in making a scene. In a low voice she urged, “Tell me. What enchantments are at work?”

  He stared.

  She leaned closer so none would hear. “Elissan. What’s going on?”

  Still he looked confused. At last, with some hesitation, “Sendara was crying. But she’ll be all right. Come here, I missed you.”