by Scott Toney
Going Adrift from the Known
Lilya stood at the end of Westwood Castle’s main hall. Her knees locked beneath her and her hands went clammy as she let them hang in the cool air beside her flowing green velvet dress.
Behind her was her chair, a rising seat of carved oak, and beside it was her father, seated on his throne. Her mother’s death while she was still a young girl left the queen’s seat vacant at his side.
Her father fidgeted with the rings on his swollen, hairy fingers. “Remember to kneel before him when he arrives. Men like women who show they submit to their control.” He spat a dark liquid to a pot at his side as he chewed on some locally grown root.
She stood silently. More and more… she hated her father.
One of the commoners who were kneeling in rows from the doorway to the throne coughed and the sound echoed in the silence. A boy giggled on the opposite side of the hall.
“Silence!” her father bellowed and shifted in his seat.
Lilya’s sight traced the wall and her eyes caught on the sword she had used to defend herself with the night she first met Alexander. What am I doing here? All of these people want to know my answer to Thomas and I don’t even know what it will be. She backed up to rest her legs in her chair and her father grunted at her to stay her place. She filled with frustration.
Moments passed and the massive wooden doors moaned as four guards pushed them open to reveal Thomas and his own guards in the doorway, sunlight shimmering across their shoulders from outside.
The court jester bounced around the open aisle from the door to the throne and blew loud into his horn to announce Thomas’s arrival.
“Thomas!” King Abishan roared from his chair. “We are blessed by your return, my son! We have anxiously awaited your arrival!”
A chorus of musicians began to play near the throne and as Thomas strode toward Abishan yellow flower petals were tossed in the air about the young boy king.
The moment is coming, Lilya thought to herself. I will have to make a decision. What would father say if I said no?
Thomas stopped and looked at one of the girls throwing petals his way. One of the petals caught on his nose and he blew it off. “There is no need for all of this pomp, Abishan,” he spoke. “We are both kings. What’s more, we are both men and I am not here to be treated like someone who is to be held up, like someone who is something more than all the rest.”
One of Abishan’s gruff guards came forward from the throne. “You dare to speak that way to our king?” He drew his sword from its hilt and the ring of steel sang through the air.
“Targ!” Abishan burst out and stood. “Thomas is a guest in our house, and the Gods be blessed one day soon he will take my daughter as his queen. If he requests that we not greet him in this manner then we will honor his wishes.”
Targ sheathed his sword and joined his king’s side.
Thomas approached the end of the aisle now, and coming to a stop he looked up deeply into Lilya’s eyes. His gaze gave her shivers and her heart beat heavily. His blue robe moved in a slight breeze that was flowing along the castle walls. “Have you thought about my question, Lilya?” he asked gently. “I would treat you well as my queen. I want to share my life with none other than you.”
Abishan smirked, showing his yellowed teeth. “Yes, daughter, what do you have to say to this young man?”
Was she moving her feet? They were moving, but she was barely sure that they were in her control. Soon she had reached the stairs, which descended from the throne area to where Thomas and his guards now stood. For long moments she did not move and stared at them blankly.
“Kneel to him,” Abishan groaned from his chair, clicking his rings on its arms. “He is a king! Kneel!”
Lilya’s knees quaked with fear of her father and she was about to kneel but as she lowered her eyes Thomas’s caught her own.
“No,” he spoke kindly and kneeled, bowing before her in unison with his guards. “It is I who has come here seeking your hand, not you seeking mine, and I would never wish for you to bow to me.”
Abishan stood. “There is no need for this, Thomas. You are above her.”
Still kneeling to Lilya, Thomas replied, “Do you still wish for me to marry your daughter, sir?”
Lilya’s father took a step forward. “Of course…”
“Then I’d suggest you sit back down and keep silent,” Thomas spoke.
At this Pine rose and gave Abishan a stern stare and the man returned to his throne.
“I…” Lilya began. She was feeling brave now and had started to see that Thomas may not be like her father at all. “I will go with you, Thomas, but on my own terms.”
“All you need to do is ask, princess,” Thomas replied.
Lilya descended a few steps of the stairs and came closer to him. “I will go with you. But I am not sure that I am in love with you yet and so I will not yet be your queen. We need time to get to know each other. Would you have me as your friend for now?”
“What?” Abishan’s voice came howling from behind her. “I apologize for my daughter’s insolence.”
Thomas lifted his head up to stare at the king. “This is the last time I’m warning you, sir. Do not worry, no matter what, if Lilya comes with me then you will get your dowry.” He looked now to her eyes. “Having you close by and getting to know you better would be something I would cherish so much.”
“And there is one more thing.” Lilya placed her hand on his shoulder and motioned for him and his guards to rise. “Do you remember the dragon I told you about that I am friends with?”
Thomas rose. “Yes,” he spoke plainly as his guards gave her an inquisitive look.
“I also request that he be welcomed to come to Havilah with me. He is a dear friend and I would not be able to part Cush without him.”
With a smile, the young king responded to her, “As you wish. Let me know how long you will need to gather your things and say goodbye to your friends and family. We will stay docked in Cush’s port until then.”
“We can leave now,” Lilya said and walked the rest of the way down the stairs. She did not look back to her father. “My things are packed and I have maids waiting to bring them to us. If you must give my father the dowry he was promised, then leave it for him, but he does not deserve it.” She strode down the aisle toward the rear doors.
“You will go nowhere unless I am paid!” Abishan’s voice echoed behind her.
She would not stop though, not until she was free of her father and this cursed place.
“You will have your dowry,” Thomas calmly answered. “I am a man of my word, but from this day on you will only have contact with your daughter if she wishes it to be so.”
“Keep the little ingrate for all I care! As long as I am compensated.”
Her father’s words filled Lilya’s heart with sadness, sadness for herself and also for her father. He did not understand how much she truly wanted him to be a good man and for things to be different between them. If mother was alive, would he be a different man? she wondered. Tears trickled from her eyes and down her cheeks.
Soon, she was out of the castle doors and into the sunlight of the day. One of her maids, that she had instructed to wait in the labyrinth close by in case she was in need of her, ran out to meet her princess. “Lilya!” she came calling to her. “King Thomas is such a handsome man! Are we going with them?”
“Go and tell the other girls to gather our things, Tessera, we leave with haste to our new home.” Lilya turned to see Thomas and his guards coming to her. The young king still had a limp.
Her maid hurried away and in through the castle doors. “We will bring your things shortly, milady,” she called.
Soon Thomas and his three hulking guards were by her side. Seeing that Lilya was upset, Thomas looked steadily at her. “I don’t know what that was about, and now may not be the time to talk about it, but just know that if you ever wish to tell me then I will be here for you.” He reached his ha
nd up and wiped a tear from her cheek.
“Thank you.” She smiled. “But I will be much better when we are away from here. When can we leave?”
“The boats won’t take long to prepare once we reach them, and we can leave as soon as you are ready to go.” As Thomas finished his words Tessera and two other maids raced from the doors and toward them with ornate bags filled with their possessions.
They took a horse-drawn carriage through the woods to the bank of the Gihon River. Thomas and Pine were guiding the horses while Juniper and Cypress were galloping along on the backs of royal stallions beside the chariot. A contingent of Abishan’s knights accompanied them as a show of protection.
Lilya could hear the clopping of the horses’ hooves as she sat in the rickety wooden hull of the vehicle with her three maids. The wind in the chariot’s blinds rippled as they moved. Her maids were talking about Havilah and making all kinds of guesses at what their lives might be like there. They were excited, they were nervous, but Lilya paid them little mind and had been quiet thus far.
She had told Alexander of what she might do, accepting Thomas’s offer but with terms of her own. She was desperate to escape Cush, at almost any cost, and her father’s behavior had put that decision to where she was now. She only hoped that Alexander would see that she was leaving and that he would be true to his word and follow her.
“I hear they’re rich in Havilah,” Tessera said in an almost giddy tone to Lilya’s other maids. “I wonder if we’ll be issued new jewelry.”
“What kind of gems do you think they have there?” a maid a little younger than Tessera, named Sydney, asked. They all bobbed in their seats as the carriage sped along the bumpy forest road.
Outside the carriage window Lilya watched as the trees passed by. She hoped that there would be trees with these vibrant green hues in Havilah. Will it have the beauty of Cush? she thought.
“Look in the sky, sire!” She heard Juniper call out and she turned in the carriage to see him riding on his galloping steed and pointing straight above him toward the sky. “I have never seen anything like that in all my days!”
“Wow!” Thomas proclaimed in awe. “Lilya, is that Alexander?”
Bracing her hands to the warm wooden windowsills, Lilya stuck her head through the swaying curtains and looked up into the sky. Above the trees a crimson dragon’s wings appeared to glow as the sunlight shone through them. They beat gently and gracefully with his muscular form. “That’s Alexander!” she called back to Thomas over the sound of the carriage rumbling along beneath them.
“He is so beautiful!” Thomas replied. “What a majestic creature!”
“He’s a little frightening if you ask me!” Cypress called from her other side.
The dragon’s neck and head curved and his shimmering eyes looked down at them as he flew. “Hello, princess!” his deep voice bellowed. “I see that you’re leaving! I hope you don’t mind the company!”
Even from far above them she could see his smile. “It’s good to see you friend,” she spoke in a voice that only she and him could hear.
Cypress rode his steed up close to the carriage and Lilya. “He doesn’t eat cattle, does he?” he asked in a worried tone.
“In all my time with him I’ve never seen any evidence of that,” she assured the guard with a grin.
“Not only do I have the most beautiful girl in all the land coming to my kingdom,” Thomas spoke, “but I also have the honor of having this majestic creature coming to be with us there too.”
“I am honored that you would speak of me like that,” Alexander spoke to him as he glided above. “I will meet you at the port, Lilya,” he said. And with a massive beat of his wings he sped along the treetops and out of sight above. The tree leaves reverberated in the winds of his passing.
“What a sight!” Lilya’s third maid, a dark-haired girl named June, said as Lilya pulled her head back inside the carriage. “I have heard of him, princess, but only terrifying things from some of the guards that have seen him. He is a little overwhelming, but so beautiful too.”
Lilya looked in the girl’s eyes, seeing more maturity in this girl than perhaps she saw in the other two. “He is beautiful, yes,” she said. “But I have learned that he is more than that. He is a better friend and a better man than the others that I have known.”
The rest of the carriage ride through the forest of Cush went quickly as Lilya sat and listened to her three maids chatter about what they thought their lives would be like in their new home. She, herself, did not hope for much. A room of her own, food, time to spend with Alexander and freedom from the physical desires of men was all she wanted.
It was still morning when they reached Cush’s docks, with crisp sunlight shimmering off of the rippling waters, and before Lilya knew it she was on Anemon’s deck watching the mainland of Cush fade away into a blur of green in the distance. She would miss her homeland, its rich foliage and life, but she would not miss the men she had grown to hate there, including her father.
҉
Far above Thomas’s fleet of ships Alexander beat his wings, breathing in the cool air about him through his warm lungs. Why was it that the nearer they came to Havilah, the more he felt a sense of wrongness within him? He felt darkly connected to the place in a way he could not explain.
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