King Callie: Callie's Saga, Book One

by B Lynch

  “Tell me what really happened,” Marrol replied. “Because we both knew what the Prince was like.” Callder’s wide, wary eyes darted down to the glimmering silver, and back up to Marrol’s.

  “I will,” Callder said, with great hesitation, “But… it’s worth more than that.” Marrol grimaced, and dug another handful out. He held out a discreet hand, which had gold among the silver; the total was half a year’s salary. A pittance for the Minister of War; a bargain for the truth. Callder’s eyes lit up, and he reached for the coins.

  Marrol pulled them back, and balled his hand into a fist. “First, the truth,” Marrol replied; Callder nodded.

  “There was a child pickin’ the flowers that Valric was after,” Callder said, “He drew steel on ‘im, and cut the boy’s throat. The Erimeni would’ve killed us to the last, but Kells talked them into a… a… called it a ‘blood duel’, I think. Him and Valric.” Callder glanced around.

  That raised Marrol’s eyebrows. So they dueled, and Kells won, he thought. “Go on,” Marrol said.

  “Valric had ‘im, but Kells… he’s not bad for an old devil. Better hand with their curved swords, too. He killed the Prince, and we went free.”

  Marrol’s eyebrows dipped. “If they dueled, why didn’t he let the Prince win?” Marrol asked. “It was his job to protect Valric.” Even if the little bastard tried to kill a child for a useless flower, it was Kells’ job to lay down his life.

  “Said he killed him because he drew steel on children - almost started war with th’ Erimeni.” Callder replied, holding out his hand. “Swore us to secrecy, an’ made us say Valric died a hero, because Kells didn’t want the King thinkin’ his boy died for nothin’.”

  “Thank you for your honesty,” Marrol said, as he dropped the coins into the guard’s hands. Money well spent, he thought, as he walked away from the conversation, the wind whipping through his hair. The only question is how, and when, to use this.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Kells was afraid to mention it, in the morning; while they lay together, in the same bed, covered by a blue canopy, light beginning to filter through it. He barely knew how to broach it with her. He knew there were better ways, more delicate ways. Fenwyn, if he’d asked, would know; men like him always did. Some of them, it was as if they were born with a woman’s soul. Ibhaen would’ve been furious that her mother hadn’t been confronted, but the truth was fragile. Kells had to deal with it accordingly.

  “Wildflower,” he said, using her pet name with great concern, “You need to stop doing this.”

  “What?” she asked, innocently.

  “Garet,” he said. “Ibhaen saw you together. You asked me to find out why she’s mad… and if it was the first time you’d done this, I think I’d be more surprised.”

  She backed up, and snatched the covers away in a single motion, covering herself. Her face was blushing red, and her eyes were wide with horror. “Yom almighty,” she muttered, before she began to plead with him. “It was just a kiss. I swear. There was nothing else. Kells, please, believe me.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Kells replied. “I know I’m a difficult man to love, but –” But he knew her wandering eye. He knew her manner. And he wasn’t able to be the kind of man that kept her entranced.

  “You’re a great man to love,” Ostre said, desperate, “You’re loyal, and kind, and it was just once. I meant nothing by it. I flirted with him to get him to lower the price, and he kissed me, and -”

  “You have children,” he said, pleading to her morality. “For them, please, contain your behavior –“

  “Just because I’ve had children doesn’t mean I cease to be a woman with desires, with wants, with lust in her heart!” she said, louder. “And you – all you do is contain. Everything about you, you close off…Have you ever tried to love a locked door, Kells? I have.” She paused, and turned to face him, with tears in her eyes. “Eleven years, I’ve given you my love… and I know I won’t always see it returned, but I don’t wither for lack of trying.”

  “I built those walls and locked those doors to keep you safe,” Kells said, plainly. “I thought if I had this house… this family… this life,” he said, “That I would grow to love it. And that it would be easier to keep that part of me separate. But part of me… part of me wants to leave this behind. To take our children, and… just leave our life.”

  “Why?” Ostre asked, puzzled. “That doesn’t make sense. Ever since I met you, you’ve wanted this.”

  “I wanted this because I thought I wanted it,” Kells said. “My father wanted it for me, and my mother wanted me to have roots somewhere… and in the end, I’m just like him.”

  “A nomad?” Ostre asked. “No, you’re not one of them. You’re the captain of the castle guard.”

  “My children need a father,” he said. “What can I give them? I try to be a good, steady man, but in the end… we’re the same, I think. We’re trying to be who we aren’t. If our children knew what we’d done, could we still be the kind of parents they deserve?”

  She was silent, for a time. “We should try,” she said. “We have to. We owe it to them.”

  Kells shook his head. “Promise you won’t see him again,” Kells said. “I’ll… I’ll try to be…”

  “Don’t,” she said, finally. “You can’t be that, any more than I could. Please don’t ask me to do the same.”

  He didn’t know why the words spilled from his mouth, then. “The Prince didn’t die… as we told them,” he said. “I lied to the King, to the family... he tried to kill children for a flower that he thought would cure the king, and the Erimeni almost took our lives for it.”

  “Yom’s teeth,” Ostre muttered. “But… you’re alive… and” She looked at him, and Kells knew, from the way she saw the guilt on his face, that the truth was evident. Her jaw dropped. “No,” she said, shocked. “No.”

  Kells nodded. “We dueled, and I bested him.” he said, as Ostre cupped hands over her mouth, in horror. “There was no other way. Five men walked out of that camp, alive, because of me.”

  “Kells, you can’t ever tell them,” she said. “You’ll be hung before the day’s out.”

  “I had no choice,” Kells said. “Either he died, or we all died. But I’ll take that secret to my grave.”

  Kells sighed, and rolled himself to the edge of the bed. He stepped onto the carpet, and walked to the dresser, where he kept his shirts, his pants; his armor was set on a stand, in the corner of the room, beneath his mother’s family crest – the one adopted by his father, as they tried to settle down. To make a life in Barra. His fingers absent-mindedly trailed over his chest-plate, tracing dents from long-forgotten battles; in the silence, he found a simple white shirt, and pulled on his pants. Ostre, still clutching the blankets, said nothing.

  “We could get a divorce,” Ostre said, at last; her words had the weight of a cannonball. “You’re the Captain of the Guard. The King favors you, and he’s not dead yet.”

  It was a time before Kells could respond. He’d thought of it, but dismissed it; the possibility was remote. But the words had laid him out, and sucked the air from his lungs like a blow just below the ribs. Divorce?

  “He’s not long for the world,” Kells replied, when he recovered. “The next King could just undo it. In either case, the Arch-Priest has to approve it, and he won’t.” Divorce was only allowed, as he recalled, in situations where abuse could be proven. Simply being unfaithful, or a poor match, wasn’t enough; the celibate priests of Yom believed any such marriage could be saved, with enough faith. Kells bitterly prayed that Yom would let all the priests get married one day, and see how long that tenet lasted.

  “What do we do, then?” Ostre asked.

  “We do what we can,” Kells said, as he lifted his armor up, over his head – pulling it down, onto his body. “We do what we must, for those we love.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Marrol found the King still in his bed, a servant nearby, his head tilted s
lightly towards the window. The bed had been moved with great effort to give him a greater view of the world outside. He had heard Marrol enter, but was slow to respond. The Minister took this to mean he was deep in thought; the Peacebringer axe, once held easily in Rionn’s hands, leaned against the wall near the head of his bed, unused. Once, it gave him pride to serve a man who carried it; now, it unnerved him. It wasn’t an obstacle then.

  “It’s a strange feeling, to have to bury one’s own child, and yet be so close to death,” the King said, turning his head to face Marrol. “Knowing I will see him soon does nothing to relieve the agony.”

  “I do not envy you,” Marrol said, sadly. “He was a good man.” It was a blatant, bald-faced lie, but Marrol would not be caught speaking ill of the dead.

  “I would not call him good,” the king replied, “But I would call him mine… He was a flawed man, but at his heart, not without love…” Rionn sighed. Marrol saw the nascent tears in his King’s eyes. “To risk his life for me, his dying father - that is a love you cannot question.”

  "Indeed, you cannot,” said Marrol, who took a seat on the bed, next to his King. They sat for a while, quietly, before Marrol spoke again. "I know this is… poor timing, my friend,” he started, "but there is no best day to discuss what happens when you pass."

  The King grunted in disapproval. “No, there is not,” he said. “But let us talk, anyway.”

  “It may not have been a simple betrayal," Marrol said, adding, "Royth may have been hired to destabilize us.”

  “You don’t know for sure, yet?” Rionn asked. Marrol shook his head. “That’s unfortunate,” the King said, turning back to the window - to the hills and below, ignorant of the people milling about in the castle courtyard in the other direction.

  “My liege,” Marrol said, “we will find out who’s responsible.” If Kells and Royth were in bed together, he’d know for certain, but his mind fought that conclusion; Kells was not the type for conspiracies. The truth he bought from that guard assured him of it. But Royth… a man who could see the future, and change it? That was a man to be worried about.

  “Of course you will,” Rionn said. To Marrol’s eyes, the King seemed distracted - as if being bound to one place had made his mind restless. Or, perhaps, it had been focused - just not in the way Marrol had hoped the despair might channel it.

  “Rionn,” Marrol said, “Your work can still continue, after…” he began, but trailed off.

  “Hmm?” The King’s attention was drawn away from the window.

  Marrol leaned in, towards the King. “You had hoped we’d be safe, once,” Marrol said. “From every danger. You’d hoped for a shining, golden age.”

  “Aye,” the King said.

  “You need not let the axe pick your successor,” Marrol said. “Choose someone who will continue your work - a trusted friend, who will honor your goals.”

  A shadow of a smile appeared on Rionn’s face, and quickly vanished. “My friend,” he said, “Please. Trust in Peacebringer. Put your faith in it. It will not steer us wrong.” Marrol eyed the axe’s cold metal, which seemed hostile in the noonday sun; it mocked him. It repelled him. Marrol paused, silent longer than he’d expected - he’d not thought Rionn’s simple plea to deeply affect him as it did.

  “I can’t,” Marrol said, finally, “Not when we need to beat back the wolves at our gate. We need a leader who can be trusted.”

  “It will give you one,” Rionn said. “It picked me, didn’t it?”

  “It also picked Petar Rynn,” Marrol said, “and he was a drunken fool.”

  “He was,” Rionn said. “But he made the peace with the Erimeni, which has stood strong for eighty years… Each King has been picked for a reason,” he said, adding, “Even the Conoll brothers, Harr and Byll.”

  Marrol allowed himself a chuckle. “Yom above,” he said. “The stories my grandfather told about them. The Battle of Caen Boro, the Night of Knives and Candles… and the time they emptied the wine cellar, and brought in whores from all over the land.”

  The King shared the laughter. “Even we never matched that, did we?”

  “We tried,” Marrol said with a sad grin. “Yom knows we tried.”

  They sat on the bed with wordless smiles, until Marrol mustered the courage to speak again.

  “Rionn,” he said, “I will miss you, my friend.”

  “And I, you,” Rionn’s tired voice replied, “my friend.” He held up a weak, trembling hand, and Marrol took it, with tears in his eyes. He could not resurrect his point - Rionn had made his wishes clear.

  And yet, Marrol thought, I cannot honor them. I cannot trust them, when I know I am meant for the task. No man can keep Barra safe as I can.

  When the servants finally came to put him in the makeshift sling, a strong sheath of cotton set across two carrying poles, Marrol helped the King from his bed, and helped to lay him on the sling. A servant lay a blanket over Rionn’s lower body - one with a hastily stitched Barrish crest on it.

  “Shall we depart?” Marrol asked.

  The King nodded. Marrol gave the signal to the servants, and they began the walk down the corridor. He felt an odd sensation, knowing that all this would be done again, only too soon.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Marrol found the King still in his bed, a servant nearby, his head tilted slightly towards the window. The bed had been moved with great effort to give him a greater view of the world outside. He had heard Marrol enter, but was slow to respond. The Minister took this to mean he was deep in thought; the Peacebringer axe, once held easily in Rionn’s hands, leaned against the wall near the head of his bed, unused. Once, it gave him pride to serve a man who carried it; now, it unnerved him. It wasn’t an obstacle then.

  “It’s a strange feeling, to have to bury one’s own child, and yet be so close to death,” the King said, turning his head to face Marrol. “Knowing I will see him soon does nothing to relieve the agony.”

  “I do not envy you,” Marrol said, sadly. “He was a good man.” It was a blatant, bald-faced lie, but Marrol would not be caught speaking ill of the dead.

  “I would not call him good,” the king replied, “But I would call him mine… He was a flawed man, but at his heart, not without love…” Rionn sighed. Marrol saw the nascent tears in his King’s eyes. “To risk his life for me, his dying father - that is a love you cannot question.”

  "Indeed, you cannot,” said Marrol, who took a seat on the bed, next to his King. They sat for a while, quietly, before Marrol spoke again. "I know this is… poor timing, my friend,” he started, "but there is no best day to discuss what happens when you pass."

  The King grunted in disapproval. “No, there is not,” he said. “But let us talk, anyway.”

  “It may not have been a simple betrayal," Marrol said, adding, "Royth may have been hired to destabilize us.”

  “You don’t know for sure, yet?” Rionn asked. Marrol shook his head. “That’s unfortunate,” the King said, turning back to the window - to the hills and below, ignorant of the people milling about in the castle courtyard in the other direction.

  “My liege,” Marrol said, “we will find out who’s responsible.” If Kells and Royth were in bed together, he’d know for certain, but his mind fought that conclusion; Kells was not the type for conspiracies. The truth he bought from that guard assured him of it. But Royth… a man who could see the future, and change it? That was a man to be worried about.

  “Of course you will,” Rionn said. To Marrol’s eyes, the King seemed distracted - as if being bound to one place had made his mind restless. Or, perhaps, it had been focused - just not in the way Marrol had hoped the despair might channel it.

  “Rionn,” Marrol said, “Your work can still continue, after…” he began, but trailed off.

  “Hmm?” The King’s attention was drawn away from the window.

  Marrol leaned in, towards the King. “You had hoped we’d be safe, once,” Marrol said. “From every danger. You’d hoped for a shinin
g, golden age.”

  “Aye,” the King said.

  “You need not let the axe pick your successor,” Marrol said. “Choose someone who will continue your work - a trusted friend, who will honor your goals.”

  A shadow of a smile appeared on Rionn’s face, and quickly vanished. “My friend,” he said, “Please. Trust in Peacebringer. Put your faith in it. It will not steer us wrong.” Marrol eyed the axe’s cold metal, which seemed hostile in the noonday sun; it mocked him. It repelled him. Marrol paused, silent longer than he’d expected - he’d not thought Rionn’s simple plea to deeply affect him as it did. “I can’t,” Marrol said, finally, “Not when we need to beat back the wolves at our gate. We need a leader who can be trusted.”

  “It will give you one,” Rionn said. “It picked me, didn’t it?”

  “It also picked Petar Rynn,” Marrol said, “and he was a drunken fool.”

  “He was,” Rionn said. “But he made the peace with the Erimeni, which has stood strong for eighty years… Each King has been picked for a reason,” he said, adding, “Even the Conoll brothers, Harr and Byll.”

  Marrol allowed himself a chuckle. “Yom above,” he said. “The stories my grandfather told about them. The Battle of Caen Boro, the Night of Knives and Candles… and the time they emptied the wine cellar, and brought in whores from all over the land.”

  The King shared the laughter. “Even we never matched that, did we?”

  “We tried,” Marrol said with a sad grin. “Yom knows we tried.”

  They sat on the bed with wordless smiles, until Marrol mustered the courage to speak again.

  “Rionn,” he said, “I will miss you, my friend.”

  “And I, you,” Rionn’s tired voice replied, “my friend.” He held up a weak, trembling hand, and Marrol took it, with tears in his eyes. He could not resurrect his point - Rionn had made his wishes clear. And yet, Marrol thought, I cannot honor them. I cannot trust them, when I know I am meant for the task. No man can keep Barra safe as I can.