The Poison Throne

by Celine Kiernan

  “Please, my Lord,” whispered Jusef, tears running down his face. But it was too late. The King was already striding towards them, his face hard, his squad of guards on his heels.

  “Good Frith,” moaned Christopher. He whipped the knife from Razi’s hand and, in full sight of the King and all his men, ended Jusef’s life.

  Wynter wailed. “NO! Christopher! NO!”

  Razi leapt up, his face appalled and took two horrified steps back. “Oh God! Drop the knife!” he cried. “Chris! Drop the knife! They’ll kill you!”

  Christopher, looking stricken and terrified, dropped the knife to the ground. He rose to his knees, his hands up, palms out.

  “He’s unarmed!” Wynter called out, turning to face the advancing men. “He was protecting my Lord Razi!”

  The King stormed across the small space between them, and Razi spun to intercept him. Jonathon’s face was wicked with anger, and when Razi stepped between him and the still kneeling Christopher, Jonathon backhanded his son without any warning. It was a massive bear-like swat to the head: Jonathon was a huge man, as tall as Razi and broader. The powerful blow sent Razi spinning to the ground. He rolled a short distance down the steep slope and smacked against a tree, curling around his wounded shoulder with an agonised cry, even as he was trying to gain his feet.

  Wynter yelled and leapt towards him, but one of the guards latched onto her arm and dragged her back. She struggled and he shook her so hard that her eyes vibrated in her head. Her teeth clicked together onto her tongue, filling her mouth with the bright copper taste of blood.

  Jonathon strode past her, intent on getting to Christopher Garron. Wynter fought the guard, straining to keep the young man in her sight. He was gazing up at the King who now loomed over him. Then Wynter saw the awful truth dawning in Christopher’s eyes, and she stopped struggling. Christopher looked into the King’s face, dropped his hands and accepted that he was about to die.

  “Your Majesty…” he whispered, but got no further. Jonathon grabbed him with a roar, lifted him from the ground and swung him, head first, into the nearest tree.

  Razi howled as he scrambled his way towards them, and Wynter resumed her frantic struggle against the guard.

  “Christopher!” she screamed, “Christopher, no!”

  Christopher’s head rebounded off the trunk with a resounding crack. Incredibly, he didn’t go down. Instead, he staggered backwards a few steps, his mouth open, his eyes dazed and then stood there, swaying drunkenly but not falling. A thin line of blood dribbled down his forehead and ran into his eye.

  One of the guards eyed him with sneering amusement. He jabbed him with his finger, and Christopher staggered sideways a step or two without seeming to notice.

  “Leave him be!” bellowed Razi, pushing his way through the ring of soldiers. “And let her go!” he snarled, slapping the guard’s hands away from Wynter. She stumbled from his grip, rubbing the top of her arms, her eyes glued to Christopher.

  Razi shoved the men aside in an attempt to get to his friend. But before he could reach him, Jonathon took the young man by the hair and slammed his head against the tree once more. This time, Christopher did fall, sliding smoothly to the ground with a moan, his eyes still open. Blood welled slowly from his nose.

  Razi launched himself in a two-fisted blow at the King, punching him soundly in the chest. Jonathon staggered sideways and looked at Razi in genuine surprise, as if he’d just dropped from the sky.

  The chief guard stepped between father and son, his fist raised, but Jonathon stayed him with a gesture. He looked Razi up and down with puzzled disdain and said, “What are you doing, boy?”

  “He’s my friend!” screamed Razi. “He was protecting me!”

  Jonathon’s face crimsoned with rage, and he grabbed Razi by the collar suddenly, and shook him until Razi gagged. “Your friend? Your friend? You’re not a commoner, boy! You have no friends! You have subjects! He’s your subject!”

  Wynter put her hand to her mouth, not knowing what to do. She was like a child among giants, and she couldn’t take her eyes from Christopher who was just visible behind the shifting screen of the guard’s legs. He was lifting and dropping his right hand in a slow ineffectual movement, his unfocused eyes roving the dappled canopy above him.

  “He was protecting me!” Razi’s voice cracked with desperation, and Jonathon released him with a small push, causing him to stumble backwards.

  “He cheated us,” the King said, his voice dangerously low. “He killed a man we wanted taken alive, and he robbed the throne of its informant. He’ll be taken to the keep, Razi, and we’ll see how many more fingers he will lose before I feel repaid.”

  Razi cried out in despair, and this time three of the King’s guards grabbed him before he could fly at Jonathon’s throat. Wynter sobbed loudly, then immediately pressed her lips shut, wishing herself invisible, when Jonathon turned his baleful glare on her. She saw him assessing her, and like beads clicking on an abacus, she saw plans and options and schemes form and shift and take shape in his eyes as he puzzled out her place in all this.

  “What are you doing here, Protector Lady? Do the Moorehawkes thwart me too?”

  Razi groaned and closed his eyes in desperate frustration. “Oh leave them be, Father! I beg of you!”

  The King roared at him, making Wynter jump. Jonathon raised his fist to his son, but caught himself at the last moment and just shook it in Razi’s now furiously defiant face. “Stop talking like a peasant! You do not beg! You never beg! You are the heir apparent!”

  “I think the sun is in the King’s eyes,” growled Razi, spit flecking his lips, his teeth bared as he surged against the restraining guards, putting his face up to his father’s. “His Majesty mistakes me for my brother!”

  Father and son faced up to each other for a moment, like territorial wolves. Then gradually Jonathon’s expression changed into something darker than rage. He looked at Razi in a new manner: an up and down, speculative manner. Wynter didn’t like this new expression. It was remote and calculating, all Jonathon’s fury fading in exchange for a carefully scheming assessment of his still furious son.

  On the ground, by the tree, Christopher murmured something in Merron and rolled onto his side. The King glanced at him and gestured to his guards.

  “Take him,” he said casually. “Feed him to The Chair. Let the remaining inquisitors winkle him out.”

  Wynter screamed in panic and tried to push her way to Razi, but he didn’t react. He had gone very wary and still, and was watching his father, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.

  Two soldiers dragged Christopher up by his arms, and he hung between them, limp as a rag. He mumbled again in Merron: “Is mise… fear saor.” He tried to raise his head but couldn’t, and his face was hidden in a tangled, bloodied net of hair.

  Jonathon turned his head slowly back to Razi, and met his eye. Wynter saw the sly triumph in the King’s face, and her heart skipped a beat.

  “Well, boy?” asked the King.

  “I will not wear the purple,” said Razi, very quietly.

  “Yes, you will,” said the King. “You will sit without protest. You will eat at each remove. And you will wear the purple.”

  Razi shook his head slowly, in sorrow and despair. “I will not wear the purple,” he whispered, his eyes glittering.

  Christopher was making a real effort to move now. He managed to hold his head up for a few moments at a time, and kept trying to bring his feet under him. He tugged vaguely against the guards’ grip.

  “Girly?” he slurred, and Wynter’s eyes overflowed with tears when she realised that he was calling for her.

  “I’m here, Christopher,” she said. “I’m all right!”

  He raised his head slightly and peered through his curtain of hair, seeing nothing. “Raz…” His head dropped forward again, and he moaned.

  “Take him,” Jonathon ordered, gesturing without taking his eyes from Razi’s face.

  The g
uards heaved Christopher upright. “You’re off to the keep, my lad!” one of them sneered into his ear. Christopher’s eyes rolled open, and Wynter knew that on some level he understood what that meant. The guard realised this too, and grinned in delight. He whispered savagely in his ear again. “They’re going to put you in The Chair!”

  Christopher released a hoarse, terrified scream and began to thrash weakly against the big men. They laughed and started to drag him backward down the hill.

  “No!” moaned Wynter. “Razi! No!”

  But Razi was staring at his father, who was showing his teeth in a merciless, triumphant grin.

  “You will attend the banquet tonight, and every night,” said Jonathon smoothly.

  Razi dropped his head.

  “You will eat at every remove.”

  Razi shut his eyes.

  “You will don the purple robe of heir.”

  Razi whispered, “Yes.”

  Christopher’s cries were fading into the distance and Wynter’s sobbing was harsh in the silence. Jonathon rubbed his hands. “Good! The Hadrish will stay in the keep tonight. You stay true to your word, and he will be released unharmed tomorrow.”

  “At least tell him he won’t go to The Chair,” Razi pleaded, raising his eyes to glare hopelessly at the King. “At least do that.”

  But Jonathon just smiled, and Wynter knew he would do no such thing. He patted Razi’s shoulder suddenly, with a tenderness that was obscene under the circumstances. Razi’s lips trembled and his eyelids fluttered in suppressed rage.

  “You will learn, son, that friends are a luxury that no king can afford. Your only duty, your only concern must be the welfare of state. Everything, everything, comes second to that. Including yourself.”

  Razi shrugged off his father’s hand and turned away. Jonathon shifted his attention to Wynter, who was staring after Christopher, her hands pressed to her mouth, tears tolling down her face.

  “Protector Lady Moorehawke,” he said, his voice harsh. “Get back to work, and do not interfere again.” Wynter raised her eyes to him, frozen to the spot. He didn’t wait for her to respond, just motioned to his guards as he turned to go. “Take his Highness Prince Razi to his chambers. He is tired and wishes to rest until dinner. He will not want to leave his rooms. Have Jusef Marcos’s widow and father arrested and taken to the keep.”

  And he strode off down the hill, leaving Wynter and Razi together in a ring of black-clad, stone-faced men, a body at their feet, their friend’s screams still hanging in the air.

  Carpenter and King

  Lorcan must have heard Wynter crying as she raced her way down the path and up the steps, because he was already coming out of the library door when she ran into the tiled corridor. He barrelled straight out into the hall, staring around him in alarm, and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of her. Wynter flung herself into his arms, jabbering incoherently, her face a mess of tears. She was so uncharacteristically distraught, so unusually out of control that he just clutched her to him, his heart beating wildly against her ear. He dragged her into the library and kicked the door shut behind them, and, much as she tried, she couldn’t stop screaming and moaning, tears and snot spreading liberally across the front of his shirt.

  She should stop now. She knew that. She kept waiting for her father to push her away, to shake her, to shout at her, get yourself together!

  But Lorcan just kept holding her against his chest, rocking her and stroking the back of her hair. He was crooning as if she were a baby. “It’s all right, darling. It’s all right, baby-girl. Shhhhhh…”

  Eventually, the wild storm drained out of her, and Wynter was left beached on its shore. She sagged, clutching her father’s shirt in both hands. Her knees were weak, her eyes burning. There were sobs and hiccups still, but she was regaining control.

  Lorcan continued to hug her close. “There we go,” he said, “That’s my girl.” She closed her eyes for a moment and floated on the strength and comfort that he still managed to give her, that he would always manage to give her, until the day he died.

  “Oh Dad!” she said suddenly and buried her face in his chest. She began to weep quietly, in a completely different way to only moments before. A heartbroken, hopeless way, that was all about loss.

  “Oh, baby-girl,” he said gently, frightened now. “Come on, darling. Tell me what’s wrong? Tell me what happened?”

  And she did. As she spoke, Lorcan drew away from her slightly, holding both her hands in his, looking down at her with growing despair. When she got to the part about Jonathon arresting Christopher and forcing Razi to don the purple, Lorcan released a little moan of grief and shook his head. Turning away, he shuffled over to the wall where he had been working. He leant against the defaced picture panel, his head down, his forehead pressed to the wood. Then he sank slowly to the floor and lay down, his head back, his right arm over his eyes.

  “Dad?” she whispered, her own grief forgotten.

  She slid to the floor and scooted over to sit beside him, taking his hand in hers.

  “Dad. Please don’t leave me.”

  A tear slid slowly from the corner of Lorcan’s eye and he hitched a little breath. “I’ll do my best, baby-girl.” And he squeezed her hand before going very still for a long time.

  Wynter sat for about two-eighths of a quarter, twenty or thirty minutes, holding his hand and listening to his breathing. This had happened several times since Lorcan’s illness began, where he had just sunk to the ground and faded into sleep, usually after a long period of intense concentration, or late nights working, or stress. It was very different from those other gasping, sweating attacks, which were so full of struggle and desperation. Wynter was never sure which of these two she hated more.

  He had been so very strained these past few days, after such a long period of hard travel, and the last two attacks had been so bad, and so close together…

  She wished that Razi were here, with his knowledge and his calm authority. Even Christopher, padding about in the background with his quiet competence, setting things straight, being supportive. Thinking of the two men only made her worry how they might be now, especially poor Christopher. She had seen a head injury like Christopher’s before, when a groom was thrown against a fence at Jonathon’s tilt-yard. The poor man had been plagued by fits for the rest of his days. The thought of Christopher, that graceful, self-assured tomcat, in the grip of one of those foaming attacks was appalling, and Wynter pressed it down with all her might.

  After a while, she heard the tramping of a large body of guards coming up the granite steps and advancing along the tiled corridor, but she didn’t move. Even when the sounds stopped right outside the library door, she remained seated. She didn’t intend disturbing Lorcan for anyone.

  The door opened a little and Jonathon slipped inside, leaving his guards in the hall. He shut the door quietly behind him and came to a stop at the sight of Lorcan lying on the floor, his daughter hunched and scowling beside him.

  “Is this how the Moorehawkes fulfil their duty to me?” he asked, but his voice was soft. “By sleeping?”

  “Your Majesty has but to glance around this room to see how hard my father has toiled in your name.” Jonathon’s eyes slid a little to the right, but he did not really look around him. Instead, he stepped closer and peered down at her father with what Wynter was amazed to see was tenderness. Infinitely more tenderness than he had shown his own son less than an hour previously. She stifled her surprise and took advantage of the King’s momentary openness while she had the chance.

  “The Protector Lord is ill, your Majesty. I beg you please, allow my Lord Razi to attend him?”

  Jonathon’s eyes flickered and he spoke dismissively as he moved to get a better view of his old friend’s half-obscured face. “He is your Royal Highness, the Prince Razi, Protector Lady Moorehawke. Do not misspeak again. And he is not a doctor; he is the heir apparent to the throne. The palace already has a doctor.”

  “Razi says he is
a quacksalver!” Wynter exclaimed, her temper rising. The King levelled an opaque look at her and she swallowed her insubordination like bile. “Please, your Majesty,” she said, courtly and low. “Will you not allow his Highness to attend the Protector Lord? Or if not his Highness, can you not find the good doctor St James, who was here before?”

  “St James is dead, child. He died bringing Razi to the Moroccos. I will get Doctor Mercury to…”

  “What are you doing, Jonathon?”

  Lorcan’s dry whisper shocked them both.

  Wynter leant over her father. “Dad?”

  Lorcan squeezed her hand, took his arm from his face and let it fall across his chest. He turned his eyes to Jonathon. He looked exhausted, and he barely moved his lips when he asked again, “What are you doing?”

  Jonathon remained silent, but Wynter was completely thrown by his reaction to Lorcan. This was a man who, only today, had backhanded his wounded son down a hill, who had tried to crack Christopher Garron’s head open against a tree and who was methodically erasing his most beloved heir from history. She found herself staring at him in astonishment as he looked down on her ailing father. He was examining Lorcan with the most heartbroken tenderness and regret. And more, a kind of shuffling guilt had crept into his demeanour, as though, in the face of his friend’s distress, he could no longer keep his courtly mask from slipping. Wynter had never thought of the King like that before, as having to don The Mask. But looking at him now she realised that, of course, of all people he would have most to hide.

  “Lorcan,” he said, crouching down beside his friend. “Allow me to appoint another in your place. There is no need…”

  Wynter’s father’s voice remained a rasping whisper, but his green eyes spat fire and his hand clenched tightly on Wynter’s when he said, “You think I would let anyone else do this, Jonathon? You think I could possibly stand by and allow someone else to undo my work? This work?”

  “What do you mean?” cried Wynter, dropping her father’s hand. “Did you offer to do this, Dad? Are you…?”