Talystasia: A Faerytale

by Haadiyah Cardinalis

  Julia opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the guard, who backed in noisily with two chairs, which he dumped unceremoniously near the door.

  "Leave it open," ordered the officer.

  In chorus, the prisoners in the next cell exploded into a storm of requests, their beseeching arms springing through the bars toward Lady Loren, who stepped back out of reach, eyes wide.

  "QUIET!" the officer hollered, jumping at them with his arms spread like a great red crow, and something in his voice silenced them immediately. He pulled the chairs to the center of the room and gestured to Lady Loren to be seated, after which he followed suit. The lady leaned in toward his ear, muttering, and the officer nodded quickly.

  She was almost sickly pale, and there were purple shadows under her eyes as if she hadn't been sleeping. The soldier’s puffy red eyes were ringed with the same lines of fatigue.

  Both were watching Julia expectantly.

  For a moment, she didn't know what to say. She had observed all of this in silence, and realized it was because these two people intimidated the hell out of her. Lady Loren, for all she appeared drained to the point of illness, was as beautiful as a storybook princess. Her exquisite high cheekbones were perfect, her delicate features graceful, her deep brown eyes gentle but penetrating. Her comrade slumped in his chair twiddling his thumbs, apparently unconscious of his rank. This didn’t have the effect of making him appear indolent or weak. On the contrary, it made him seem even more formidable, as if the concept of rank were so far beneath him he felt free to disregard it. His uniform was trimmed in gold with matching cords and buttons, decorated with medals and ribbons.

  Julia had seen such showy uniforms on visiting generals before—but never on any of Lord Telyra’s men, who all wore the same standardized, unfussy uniform as himself.

  Lord Telyra—who was waiting for her.

  Getting a grip, her ire flamed back and she snapped, "F-finally! What does it take to get an audience with you!"

  Lady Loren flinched in her seat, drawing back in surprise. "You can't tell me that Lord Telyra meets with every messenger in person!” she exclaimed.

  But even as she said it, Julia heard the question in her voice.

  "Actually, he does. Lord Telyra meets with anyone who wants to talk to him, in person."

  Not that that’s a lot of people, she thought dryly.

  She and Lady Loren sat scowling at each other.

  The officer cleared his throat.

  Lady Loren leaned in toward her escort and mumbled again. She turned back to Julia. "I'm ...” She shrugged. “You already know—I'm Lady Loren. And this is Lieutenant Costellic."

  “Lieutenant!” Julia exclaimed, unable to help herself. “How are your generals decorated?”

  Lady Loren and Lieutenant Costellic exchanged glances and he started to laugh. The lady shook her head, but not before he stated, “… I am the general.”

  What …? She thought of pressing the point, but left it. What did it matter? Whoever he was, he was Lady Loren’s confidante.

  Lady Loren outstretched her hand and the strange officer passed her the envelope with Lord Telyra's broken seal.

  Julia sighed with relief. "You got it," she observed pointlessly.

  "Yes," replied Lady Loren, her gaze measuring.

  "Do you know what this says?" the man barked abruptly, holding up a stack of folded pages. They were covered in her master’s neat, recognizable script.

  "... No."

  Lady Loren raised her eyebrows, a flicker of a question passing through her eyes. She dumped the contents of the envelope into her lap.

  "Did you draw these?" she asked kindly.

  Julia blinked, recognition dawning as Lady Loren flipped through the pages on her lap.

  Lord Telyra’s meteorological charts.

  "Yeah," she affirmed in surprise. "I drew those. How did you know?"

  “It was a guess.”

  "Why?" demanded Costellic.

  "Because Lord Telyra told me to." She blinked. "If he had wanted me to know why, he'd have told me. It’s his own business if he wants to record the weather. I can't read or write. So I draw—it’s one less thing for him to have to do everyday. For all I know that's why he asked me to deliver the letter. He didn’t want anyone reading it … including me I guess.”

  "That seems consistent," Lady Loren murmured to her companion.

  The officer shrugged.

  "How long have you been making these charts?" she asked her.

  "... Four years. On and off. He fills in the dates at the end of the week. He's been keeping these records for years though. Longer than I’ve been helping him."

  Curiosity almost moved her to ask what, after all, the unexplained charts were all about. But annoyance with her confinement moved her to solidarity with Lord Telyra, so she swallowed her question.

  "What's he like?" asked Lady Loren abruptly.

  "Umm ... I don't really see what you mean," she stalled.

  "His character? What manner of man is he?"

  A cold-hearted, inconsiderate, foul-tempered git …?

  "He's ... a good man," she said without much conviction, calling on Rizaq’s words.

  Lady Loren and her officer looked at each other disbelievingly.

  "... Whatever that letter says, you can trust it," she offered. "... Honest … He's honest, I mean."

  "Do you know Lord Telyra well?"

  "No," she lied.

  She could feel Lady Loren's gaze boring into her face. The lady leaned forward, her gesture encompassing her broken arm and the bruises on her face.

  "Did he do that to you?"

  She hung anxiously on the question. "No. Riding accident," she said finally.

  "You have a horse?" Lady Loren inquired in surprise.

  "Yeah, and I want it back. Can I go now?"

  Lady Loren's countenance was shrewd, and she had a sinking feeling about the response.

  "No."

  "Why? You got more questions for me?"

  "Not right now," Lady Loren said, standing up.

  "But I wanna go home!" she cried, bolting to her feet and glaring up at her. "HEY!"

  The lady’s jaw dropped. "Why ...?" she asked incredulously.

  "... Because it's home! I'm not gonna stay here. This is a jail cell. I haven’t broken any law! I came here to do you a favour. I delivered that message to you. If it means anything to you, why are you doing this to me? Is this any way to treat a messenger, even the messenger of your adversary? Did he do something to piss you off? That letter en't a declaration of war, is it? Because Lord Telyra wouldn't do that. He doesn't want to fight you. He just wants to be left alone."

  The officer shot Lady Loren a meaningful look.

  "You know him curiously well ... for not knowing him well," she observed, and now she was smiling, amusement sparkling in her eyes.

  "Three years of truce speaks for itself," she retaliated, frustrated. “We all know Lord Telyra. I live in his castle along with about half of his staff.”

  "Don't you want to be free?"

  "Free ...?" she asked impatiently. “This has nothing to do with anything!”

  "My family has taken in many slaves who fled from Lord Telyra's halls. They’ve taken up residence in our household as free servants. We want to help. We couldn’t do that over the past three years of course, but before that, we accepted refugees. Now, as the status of the treaty is still in question—"

  "—If you haven’t declared war on Lord Telyra, you have to let me go,” she shouted, drowning her out. “I was told you condone slavery enough to return runaways. So return me! Maybe stealing Lord Telyra's property was all good and well back when your father was attacking us—"

  "—providing sanctuary and asylum. You're not property, you're a human being."

  "Yeah I am. A human being who makes her own choices, and wants to go home. Stealing Lord Telyra's property isn't a great way to forge a new relationship. I don’t know what that letter says, but I know
it’s an offer of truce, because it wouldn’t be anything else. So return my lord’s horse to me and let me go. Just send me back."

  "... No. We'll put you up in the palace tonight."

  "This is ridiculous. Aren't you going to send him a reply—?"

  "Not with you.”

  "I have a right to leave!" she shouted furiously. “You can’t keep me here!”

  "Your lord doesn't have jurisdiction here," Costellic replied flatly.

  "… Yeah, well, I don't recognize yours."

  He started to laugh.

  "I might have more questions for you later," Lady Loren offered. "That’s all this is about. You can go home tomorrow. I promise."

  Her face concealed her intentions.

  "Fine," she huffed in resignation, and sighed.

  … Guess I won’t be banging on your door tonight, Master.

  ~~~

  Rose stood in the library long after they had returned, her back to the table where the pages of Andreas Telyra’s letter were strewn, fragile fragments of hope fluttering in the draft. Raindrops patterned the window glass, gleaming like liquid copper. Pressing her fingers to the cold surface, she watched her breath condense, blanketing the darkness beyond.

  She already felt like she had the entire letter memorized word for word.

  "Whatever our circlets are … they are not cold pieces of metal but living, thinking things. My circlet has the ability to move of its own accord and a magnetism that draws it to me as inevitably as a river to the sea … I expect yours does the same."

  It was what she kept coming back to. Costellic was right. There was nothing in the world that could rationalize or justify the circlet's control over her. She was a prisoner, a pawn. Her standing was only an illusion—and she had less power now than she had in her entire life, less even than the slave girl who didn’t want to be free.

  Regardless of the rest, possession and politics aside—

  This thing owns me.

  Lord Telyra was extending his hand to her. His face might not be reflected here in the glass beside her own, but he too was looking out at the same black sky, the same unending downpour. If she didn’t accept that hand now … she knew whatever was left of her courage would wither and die, now and forever.

  “Everything inside me since the day I inherited this accursed thing drives me to rape and kill. I abhor destruction, and yet I relish it.”

  Here was a man who would sooner murder a child in its mother’s womb than allow his line to continue—an act, however abhorrent, that he would consider a humanitarian choice. Degeneracy to end degeneracy. Was there room in her moral universe for such a man?

  She thought of the hard decisions the past week had demanded of her. She suspected that Corin Costellic was trying to spare her from those decisions. She tried to envision twenty-two years of those decisions—terrible choices forced upon a man who could never abdicate except by plunging a knife through his heart. The morality of such a man would not fit neatly into a naive portrait of right and wrong, good and evil, black and white.

  Had he violated his moral principles when he chose to spare her life, leaving the fates of tens of thousands in her uncertain hands? Was it up to her now to decide if his act of mercy had ultimately been one of conscience or neglect? He had been born morally compromised, with only the power to choose the shape and degree of the suffering he inflicted.

  … And so was I.

  "Still, I do not regret the truce, nor my act of defiance in sparing your life the other night—and I believe I have the capacity to maintain that truce for the rest of my life, and never kill another man, woman or child under your reign … But I fear ... that without an outlet for my bloodlust, I will lose control, and I will kill someone."

  Someone.

  It was the only word in the entire letter in italics … Why?

  “If you resist, as I have, you will find your own personal torments deepening, turning inward and betraying those closest you. You too, will lose control of your pain."

  And suddenly—she knew. Knew why he’d sent her, and why a truce would never be enough for Andreas Telyra, whose war was now within the walls of his own house … and his own heart.

  ~~~

  Snatching up the letter, she rushed out of the library, taking the series of corridors that led to the guest room she’d assigned the slave girl.

  Her knock went unanswered.

  What if she left? Could she do that?

  Without thinking, she twisted the knob and stepped inside.

  “Milady! So sorry, I didn't hear you. My mind was wandering."

  She blinked, confused, and discovered Rachel tucking in the rumpled red silk bedspread on the sumptuous four poster, her dark eyes wide and apologetic.

  "Oh! Hi Rachel, it’s quite all right. Is the girl still here?"

  "She's in the bath, Milady. She was … jumping … on the bed.”

  "Oh. Do you think—" She broke off, and crossed impatiently to the bathroom door.

  She knocked.

  "Yeah?" came the voice from inside.

  "… It's Rose Loren,” she answered, instantly regretting. “No matter, I can come ba—"

  "—It's okay. You can come in."

  Stunned by this unexpected compliance, she pushed open the door, coughing on a cloud of humidity. Much to her surprise, the petite girl was beaming widely with pleasure, her intractable scowl gone, her face aglow. She was submerged in foam up to her neck, the bubbles in the wide marble tub towering ludicrously high on every side of her, sculpted into a madcap landscape of rose-coloured mountain tops and bluffs.

  Rose noticed the rust on her collar for the first time.

  That would be odd, she thought absentmindedly. Bathing in that thing all the time. Then again … The weight of the circlet seemed to intensify. I guess that’s me too now.

  "This is fun!” exclaimed the girl. “I never thought bathing could be fun. How do you keep the water hot?" Giggling, she turned over a glass container of liquid soap. "This stuff is great!” she exclaimed over the roar of the faucet. “We don’t have this at home. It doesn’t foam up. I bathe in a bucket. With this crappy soap in a bar, and beer. Cause beer hops are good for your skin. I hate it.”

  Rose seated herself on a wicker chair beside the door. "You know ... I really am a prat," she apologized, her face hot. "I didn't even ask you your name ..."

  "Julia. S’pose you got more questions." She rolled her eyes.

  "Not ... exactly.”

  "What is it then?"

  She examined Julia's face under her slicked-back hair. The dark patches, some of which she'd mistaken earlier for dirt, remained. The large, jagged purple contusion covering the left side of her head was dark with the bath water.

  “… That’s a mean bruise,” she commented.

  “I’ve had worse,” the girl responded, echoing her sardonic tone and leaning forward. She smiled wryly, her eyes humourless, dark. “… ‘Least my eye didn’t swell shut this time.”

  "Raise your arm please."

  She raised her right arm, the soapsuds popping to reveal skin battered in bruises, the marks around her wrist clearly the imprints of fingers.

  … So, not a riding accident.

  “Mean horse,” Rose stated flatly.

  Julia turned her eyes away, looking at the wall.

  "That's all I wanted to know," she mumbled, slightly embarrassed.

  ~~~

  "... And that's why he sent her," she finished, speaking rapidly to Costellic an hour later, back in the library. "Sorry to wake you and drag you back here. I can't believe you actually went to sleep. Went home," she added curiously.

  "That's okay ..."

  "... She obviously wasn't trained as a messenger. Otherwise she'd have been far more politic."

  "Not like we were," Costellic commented. "To her."

  "Yeah ... I feel a bit lousy about that. Anyway, I believe she knows him very well. He didn’t just send us the pictograms to prove his point about the weather. The
pictograms prove that they speak regularly, and have for years, that he’s given her responsibilities he’d have been uncomfortable giving to others. She isn't just another member of his staff."

  "… This is so confusing. Really, I don't understand it at all. Why did she lie?"

  "Distrust? Embarrassment? Any number of reasons. He knew she would. He didn't tell her not to, because he doesn't tell her anything. He doesn't want her to know that he's been taking out the bloodlust he can't sate on the battlefield on her. He can't live it down. He thinks he’s going to kill her, unless he can get rid of the circlet. It’s why he sent her, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell her that. He doesn’t want her to know he’s possessed."

  "So you're saying that Lord Telyra's lost his head over some little girl—?" Costellic shook his head, blinking exhaustion out of his eyes. "Actually, property—?"

  "A human being, Costellic. Yes, I am. And she's not a little girl."

  "Why not write it in the letter? Why make you guess?"

  "Because we wouldn’t have taken it seriously? And perhaps he can’t bring himself to actually say it, even in the privacy of a letter.”

  "—I still don’t. We’re talking about the same Lord Telyra, right? Brutal, murderous lunatic?"

  "—He wanted her to be real to me. He wanted me to think it through myself, so I’d know this isn’t a political game to him … because it’s personal.”

  "...You think Lord Telyra wants to abandon the land he hasn't so much as stepped foot out of in two decades on a crazy quest—and drag you into it—because he can’t see any other way to stop himself from murdering some slave?"

  "Why not?"

  "My Lady ... this is politics, not ballroom gossip; it’s ludicrous."

  "Politics ... gossip, aren't they often the same?"

  "People don't make state decisions with consequences this far reaching over ... some woman! They certainly don't expect other people to. Admittedly," he smiled to himself in a peculiar way, “… It wouldn't be the first time."

  "Then you agree."

  "Your reasoning is sound—even if his isn't. It’s all too bizarre to be contrived. But where does this leave us? I’m ready … just barely … to believe that he thinks he’s possessed—and may very well find it acceptable to risk his entire political reputation and the security of his state on the safety of an unimportant girl.” He rolled his eyes. “But certainly you don't plan to wager your whole regime on a quest to save some girl you don't know from a man with zero self-restraint? I have trouble believing a man who hits a woman can possibly care for her. If his intentions were true, he would have given us the deed to her life, and left her here, away from him. All this proves is that he’s a monster at home as well as on the battlefield."