by Raven Oak
He returned to his seat and gestured to a servant with a flick of his thick wrist. The boy filled his cup with watered-down ale, which he sipped slowly before speaking. Margaret caught the sour look before her father schooled his expression.
There is nothing wrong. Father’s only worried over the wedding preparations. Despite the thought, the worry creases at the corners of his eyes set her stomach turning. Margaret set the apple on the plate in front of her, unfinished.
“When I first met him, he was nothing more than a young man of sixteen. His Highness smiled and talked and assured all who would notice that he was confident and worth their trouble, but I knew he bore the typical doubts of a second son—unsure of his future, what lands he would hold, and whom he would marry. He knew, of course, of the treaty between our kingdoms. A promise made long ago at the end of the Little War of Three.”
“But he didn’t know of me.”
More tension in the lines of his face, and the apple’s once sweet smell soured. Margaret pushed the plate across the table and nodded for its removal. “He knew he would marry, yes, but not whom. That meeting was when his father and I told him of his future. Of you. The treaty guaranteed the joining of our families through this marriage that would bring peace to an age long feud.”
She’d only been ten. A less mature and less graceful princess, her head full of horses and flowers. Margaret had rushed into the audience chamber to tell Papa how far she’d ridden her pony, only to find two adult faces staring at her: her father, with slight humor, and his guest, with a coldness that still made her shudder. She was set to turn tail and run when she spotted the prince.
She recognized him, even if he didn’t find her familiar.
Prince Gamun Bajit of Shad wiped the scowl from his face and smiled, his grin sending a blush from the roots of her dark hair to her bare toes. When his eyes had stopped on her feet, she’d fled the room with a hasty bow. It had taken her three days to finally tell her father what had been so important.
Listening to her father recall it now, she drummed her fingers on the table until she thought she would burst. “I know how you met, Papa. Tell me more about him.”
“All right, all right.” Her father’s chuckle was hesitant, forced. “Prince Bajit still has black hair and brown eyes. Resembles his father more than his older brother does, though I suspect the elder of being the bastard of another woman—”
When Margaret gasped, her father patted her hand. “My apologies, my lady. I spend too much time among men that I forget myself.” King Leon winked, and Margaret relaxed shoulders held too tight. “The women say he has a good frame. Good for fighting and protecting a kingdom, I suppose. When he visited, he was strong and quick at the hunt. Took out three buck with the bow from several pole lengths…”
While her father rattled on, Margaret forgot the knots in her stomach and allowed her mind to drift. At twenty-six, he was probably more handsome and broader in the shoulder. More refined and intelligent. All her life she’d waited for this. The vision had changed as she had aged, as she had gained maturity, but it never had disappeared. She would marry the perfect prince, and together they would rule. They would lead Alexander in continued peace and happiness.
So maybe the vision was a bit… naïve. Maybe even too perfect.
The alternative gave her nightmares as the wedding approached, so she pushed it from her thoughts as often as possible. Focus on the future, the hope he brings to the kingdom. Margaret glanced up from her trembling hands to find her father had stopped speaking.
“I think I lost you there,” he said, his steady voice calm despite the expression he wore.
“Papa—” She took a drink of the water to cool the flush from her cheeks. “Is it wrong to be… scared?”
“Depends on what you’re scared of, poppet.”
Margaret continued drumming her fingers on the table, a nervous fidget she was forever trying to quit. If for no other reason than to please her tutors. “What if he doesn’t like me? Prince Bajit—” Margaret blushed when his name crossed her lips. “He’s never met me.”
King Leon reached out to pat her hand and stopped when he caught her frown. When the twinkle in his eyes reached his lips, her face grew hot. He was laughing at her.
Margaret tucked a stray hair behind her ear and used the motion as an excuse to brush aside the tear that carved an unwilling path down her cheek.
The motion was not hidden, and her father’s joy lost its zeal. “Poppet, everyone gets nervous before their wedding day. It’s perfectly natural. Your own mother fainted four times before our wedding—in fact, she had fainting spells throughout the ceremony itself. All the fuss will be over soon enough. You’ll be Alexander’s queen, ready to rule our lands once I’m long gone from this world.”
She gasped. “But I’m not ready to be queen. Besides, you’re well and healthy, Father.”
“Life is flighty, poppet. And no one is ready to rule.”
He cleared his throat to cover a cough and then drank deeply from his cup. “Is your cough still bothering you?” she asked. He busied himself by summoning a servant for more ale. “I thought the healers had given you something.”
“They have, but you know how Echain is—one moment the trees are blooming and the next, they are tempered with frost and the bite in the air sends one’s lungs to the dungeon.”
He spoke of the season as if this cough visited every Echain, and Margaret wracked her brain. How many seasons had passed since the cough had arrived? How many more would he carry it? What if… She halted the thought. Her father, the King, was strong. He would live a long while before Margaret would rule.
“I wish Mother were here.”
His face froze, all humor in his eyes dissolving. Margaret wished she could erase the words, take them back into her mouth to stay politely in her head where they belonged. Once again she’d caused him pain. As her own did, she was sure his mind rushed back to that memory, her younger self sitting in front of her mother while they both clung to the saddle.
Their horse climbed a hill during the heavy rains of Echain, mud splashing them both in their escape from Alexander. The memories were hazy, but even in the warmth of the dining hall, Margaret shivered. Bone cold had pierced right through her woolen cloak, and rain had pelted her hood. This time, closing her eyes didn’t rid her of what came next.
The snap of a twig sounded up ahead, and the guards in front of them stopped. They shouted orders several times, all of which was muffled by Margaret’s hood. Her mother’s hand clamped over Margaret’s mouth, and she whispered, “Shhhh…"
They sat astride the horse, unmoving as they waited for something, some action to dictate fight or flight. Margaret leaned closer to her mother, and Catherine wrapped one arm around her. “It will be all right, Margaret,” she whispered in Margaret’s ear.
A cry from the trees sent most of the guardsmen running toward the source. Margaret clamped her eyes shut, and when a nearby guard uttered a short gurgle, she opened them as he slid to the forest floor. Margaret and her mother were alone, and the sound of fighting in the distance diminished.
Her mother lurched forward, pressing Margaret against the saddle. The pommel dug into her shoulder, and she twisted in an attempt to free herself from her mother’s weight.
"Momma?” she called out, but her mother didn’t move. Margaret waited for a guard to free her, but no one came.
It wasn’t until the horse moved on its own to reach the nearby grass that Margaret realized just how silent her mother had become.
“Your mother would have been a nervous wreck about this wedding.”
Her father’s words jerked her back to the present, and a frightened squeak escaped her dry lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” said King Leon and he leaned over the table corner to pat her hand. “You must have been long lost in thought.”
Margaret didn’t trust herself to speak. She stared at the table to hide her tears. King Leon cleared his throat and resu
med cutting another apple into thin slices. When her courage returned, she said, “I was thinking about Mother. About the day she died…”
“I’m still amazed you remember. You were only five.”
“It’s like a plague I can’t cure. I remember it too well.”
Nodding, he said, “For me, too. Well, a change of topic is in order—think on your prince instead. Surely that can cure you of your blues.”
Despite the melancholy that threatened to swallow her good mood, her prince gave her partial reason to smile. “Maybe there will be a son in my future. Surely a child can cure what ails me.” Even her arms flushed at the audacity of such a bold thought, and King Leon bellowed a laugh that bounced around the empty hall; tonight was a private dinner, held at a late hour.
“Once again my daughter thinks ahead to the kingdom’s health. A grandson. My girl, that would be wonderful.” He gave her hair a slight tussle, an action left over from childhood, and she lowered her gaze to the table. “I wish the two of you all the world’s happiness. May your days be warm and full of laughter, and your nights full of love.”
If she could just survive until the wedding, all would be well. It has to. Margaret stood and rounded the table. When her father rose, she embraced him and pressed her head gently to his chest.
His heart beat in her ears, and for a moment, a fainter heartbeat, lighter and slower pulsed. The smell of rain surrounded her until she could feel the forest’s stillness. Margaret could sense the horse beneath her, feel the pommel digging into her shoulder, and then the extra heartbeat faded away. It left her beside her father as she sought the strength of knowing he would always be there, that he would never, ever leave her.
Then he coughed.
A great shudder ran through him, and she thrust his cup into his waiting hand. Another hack shook his frame before it settled, leaving him pale and shaking. “Father, are… are you sure you’re well? Maybe we should delay the wedding until you’re better?”
His energy waned too much to give more than a half-hearted smile as he sank into his chair. “I appreciate your concern, but the treaty must be upheld. Too much is riding on it to delay things now. I’ll be fine, pet. I promise.”
The hand that held his cup trembled, and the liquid sloshed over the rim. Her grandfather’s carved face swam beneath the ale now pooled on the wooden table.
“Father—” Margaret began, and then she paused.
“What is it, poppet?”
“I’ve heard something, and I would know if it were truth or just the wagging of tongues.”
A page entered the dining room and paused at King Leon’s side. Her father nodded at Margaret without looking up from the note the page held. “Go on, ask your question.”
“Well, it’s about—”
“Damn the Dozen.”
Margaret flinched.
“She returned alone?” he asked the page.
“I-I don’t know, Your Majesty. I mean, I think so. That’s what the captain said.”
King Leon’s chair scraped against the stone floor and tumbled over as he stood. “I’m sorry, poppet. We’ll have to talk later. This needs my immediate attention.” Her father still held the knife in his hand, his apple forgotten, and he tossed it on the table. The blade skittered through the ale, painting a macabre scene across her grandfather’s face.
“But—”
He passed through the archway before she could finish her sentence and left Margaret alone with a single servant. Margaret sent the girl away with the wave of a hand.
“Damn,” she muttered and felt her cheeks grow hot with the utterance of such a word. She didn’t feel any better having said it either. Instead Margaret seized the knife from the table and stabbed the leftover apple slices.
There are rumors, Father. I know better than to listen to gossip, but the things they say… Instead of her prince’s perfect face, the features in her mind twisted until his mouth snarled and his eyes flashed his anger. She could imagine it: those hands around her neck, those eyes watching as life fled her body, and his voice speaking her father’s words.
"The treaty must be upheld. Too much is riding on it."
Margaret pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her them as the candlelight on the table wavered. She hardly noticed it flicker and sputter before going out, leaving her alone in the dark with the rumors.
King Leon stood for a moment outside the door to his audience chamber. His sepier had returned from her mission alone. She understood the consequences of returning empty handed, yet here she was awaiting him alone.
I can’t see her right now. If I do, I just might kill her. Former captain of his royal guard, Captain Warhammer held the unique position in his kingdom of being the one person he could trust with special tasks, delicate tasks he trusted no one else to complete. Leon sighed and resumed his walk down the hallway. Away from the captain. Away from her failure.
Damn her.
Of course, the moment his brain pictured her, his heart lurched in his chest while his brain cursed her existence. And another part of him wanted to turn right around and burst through the door, to grab her by her scarred shoulders and kiss lips he’d kissed for over a decade. He cursed again, and a page flinched before ducking through a nearby door. King Leon shifted his thoughts to his daughter, but she was no more pleasant to think on than Ida Warhammer.
He did her a disservice. He sighed and held his breath to prevent the cough that fought to erupt from his chest. It was hardly her fault for thinking of her mother at a time like this. Memories that haunted him plagued her as well, and he paced the castle’s hallways, a lost visitor to its walls rather than its ruler.
The horse had wandered with Margaret trapped beneath her mother’s corpse for a long enough time to send Margaret into shock.
One member of the guard, his arm burned and bloody, had stumbled back to the castle. King Leon’s heart had shriveled up in his chest. He had believed the worst. He wanted nothing more than to ride his own horse until the poor beast collapsed in search of his wife and daughter, but as bad luck would have it, Shadian troops attacked at midday. The attack left him at the beginning of the Little War of Three, a war that lasted a full three years and ended only when the Boahim Senate stepped in.
If the Shadians hadn’t attacked, I would have done it. I would have ridden out to find them and probably gotten myself killed in the process. Thank the Thirteen for little favors.
He tried not to think on it too often, but nights like tonight, as his lungs ached and his daughter worried, the memory grabbed hold. Only more ale relinquished its hold on him. It didn’t help that he feared this wedding. King Leon leaned against the chilly stone wall. Could he give his only daughter to a Shadian?
A lifetime of hatred gripped his heart. The generational feud between the two kingdoms didn’t die with the peace treaty, no matter what the Senate thought. Will this marriage even bring us true peace?
He slammed his fist into the stone, and weathered knuckles came away bloody. King Leon ignored the red, his mind reaching back to his father’s time. Never trust a Shadian. Their blood runs black.
“How I miss the old man…”
“Sire?” A servant approached, eyes widening when he spotted the drying blood across his knuckles; King Leon waved him off.
“Leave me.”
As much as the Boahim Senate had wanted the end of the war, the peace treaty wasn’t one he would have signed had he been the man and king he was now. The arranged marriage… the things he’d heard about Prince Bajit.
Rumors reached Leon’s ears, rumors of a psychopathic monster that haunted the Shadian country, preying on young girls and leaving destruction in its wake. A few of the darkest rumors hinted that someone in the royal family was behind the trail of broken girls, that maybe even Prince Bajit himself was this monster, but no proof existed. Many of the sources that propagated these rumors disappeared overnight, leaving Leon’s own spies confused and lacking anything substantial.<
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As a king, it worried him but only to a degree. It wasn’t his kingdom being attacked by this monster. If there were any truth to the rumors, surely the Boahim Senate would step in since the aforementioned crimes broke the Thirteen. As a father, he worried. Worried that his last remaining daughter was marrying a monster made of nightmares.
A cough rose and shook his massive frame, bitterness coating his tongue. Useless healers. They gave him tonics aplenty, but nothing ceased the shredding of his lungs. How long could he hide whatever it was that turned him inside out? My days are numbered, but please, Delorcini, bless me and keep me here with Margaret until—
His ankles shook and King Leon gripped the wall for strength as another coughing fit washed over him. “Your Majesty. Are you well?” A nearby page dashed toward him, tripping over his own feet in his rush, but King Leon stopped the boy with the out-turned palm of his hand. The page slid across the smooth, polished stone and halted just before the King.
“I’m—fine.” King Leon tried to push the page away, but weak, he fell back against the wall hard enough to rattle the door behind him. Eyes wide, the boy turned tail and took off down the hallway. Probably fetching a healer. As if there were anything they could do for him now. Not even I can command what I cannot control.
This next cough rendered him breathless, and Leon wondered if this was it—the cough that would burst his lungs and orphan his child. Not yet. Please, Itova, don’t come for me yet.
The page returned, dragging a healer by the arm. “Another fit, Your Majesty?”
At his nod, the healer pulled a packet of powder from his robe and offered a pinch to the King. Whatever herb it was couldn’t heal him, but King Leon seized it with shaking fingers, his mouth puckering up with the bitter taste that parched his mouth.
“My thanks.” The effort to catch his breath left beads of sweat upon his brow. To the page, he said, “Don’t worry, lad. It’s just a cough. Now hurry along to bed.”
At first the boy paused, but when the healer nodded, he scampered off. “You should be in bed yourself,” said the healer, and his eyes narrowed as they lingered on Leon’s face.