“Stop! Stop! What madness is this?” Kublan cried as he threw himself in front of a thick man holding a searing iron rod. The man was taller than the king and twice his girth, but he immediately backed away. He laid the rod in the flame of the brazier and gave the Raven a worried look.
“We had hoped to obtain a full confession, and thus be done with this unseemly exercise, before you arrived, your greatness,” the Raven said. “She persists in her innocence, but—”
“Who ordered this? You?” he shouted at the Raven.
Maharí was stretched across a heavy wooden bench, her hands and feet tied. Kublan hovered over her, confused and helpless.
“Save me,” she gasped. “You know I could never betray you. I love you.”
Kublan removed his cloak and swirled it over her to protect her. He turned and glared at the Raven. His eyes were black pools of contempt. He pointed a trembling finger. “It is you who will fall from the tower this day!”
The Raven blanched, his face pale and uncertain. The king had never raised his voice to his beloved counselor before, but what was happening here was unforgivable.
The Raven motioned to Tonguelessone, who stood in the shadows. The king looked up and, for the first time, was aware of the others present in the chamber.
Tonguelessone stepped forward with a folded parchment in her hand. Kublan could see the humped shoulders of the loremaster behind her. Why has Raven allowed them in this forbidden place?
He glanced about. The punisher turned the poker in the flame and watched the king. The commander of the kingsriders stood in rigid military stance. The master steward was partially hidden behind the Raven.
The steward is here? The commander? Have they held court without the presence of their king? There can be no other purpose for such an assembly, but how dare they accuse this woman?
Kublan had been in this chamber and seen the devices of torture before, but with Maharí on the planks, he suddenly saw the manacles, screw presses, and spiked collars as the instruments of horror they were. He was pierced with dread. He ached for any who had suffered here. He had a wretched pain in his stomach, and choked as the bile came again.
Tonguelessone handed him the folded parchment.
Maharí cried out, “It is not my doing, m’lord. I beg you to believe me.”
The king unfolded the parchment and narrowed his eyes at what was scribbled there. His old eyes failed him. Even at the end of his arm, the petite markings remained a blur. “What is this?” he demanded and handed the parchment to the Raven.
“It is the evidence the concubine is a spy and traitor, m’lord.”
“She confesses to this accusation?” He directed the question to the punisher.
“Not yet,” the punisher said. “But she will soon enough.”
“No! It can’t be so! You are wrong! You are fools.”
“Aye, m’lord greatness, it is true I was a fool to ignore the servant woman’s suspicions,” the Raven said. “Tonguelessone tried to warn me before the tragic slaughter of the kingsriders, but I could not believe that—”
The king cut him off. “Warn you? The woman has no tongue nor ears nor wit to write or read her own name.” Kublan’s fingers fluttered to his tongue and ears and ended by tapping his head.
“She and I communicate in our own way, m’lord. Her loyalty is without reproach.” He gave Tonguelessone a fleeting glance and smiled. “We believe it was Maharí who alerted the bandits who fell upon the march of kingsriders.”
“Preposterous!”
“How else can we explain the slaughter of Borklore’s march, your greatness?” the chief commander of the kingsriders asked.
By his tone Kublan knew the man’s powerful influence was at play in the destruction of the woman. Is he the one responsible for this torture?
“How could a slave of the harem know about such things?” Even before the words tumbled from his lips, memories of the intimacies he shared with the concubine flooded his head. Inconsequential chattering. Adoring flattery. Fawning. So many questions. But she listened so well . . . His stomach burned.
The Raven’s voice brought the king back. “She sent secret messages from Kingsgate via itinerant merchants whom she enticed.” The parchment bobbed in the Raven’s hand.
“Seduced,” the commander of kingsriders growled.
“Merchants who were likely rewarded by the bandit,” the Raven hastily added when he saw the king’s neck reddening at the accusation of his concubine’s infidelity.
“Not true, m’lord.” Maharí wept in spite of the punisher’s hand above her face.
“She was sent here as a spy,” the Raven said. “With the help of those who stand in secret places as your eyes and ears, I have discovered the truth of her. Her name is Yeeshundu Quan. She is not the gracious princess of Romagónian kings as you were told, nor do her veins contain one drop of Romagónian blood. She is most certainly not the second cousin of Ormmen of House Romagónian. She is a whore from the brothel of Ashendorf.”
King Kublan’s eyes locked on the Raven’s face. The man’s words were cold and precise, like needles pushing into the king’s head. At that moment, he felt less like a king and more like an old man whose only frail thread of human connection had just been torn away.
“We deeply regret this discovery, m’lord.” The Raven shook his head. “We suspect she is working with Drakkor, the bandit who calls himself Blood of the Dragon.”
“There can be no other explanation,” the commander of the kingsriders said. “They move with boldness and are often seen on the roads and in the taverns, but vanish like smoke in the wind the moment the kingsriders move. They are warned, and this whore is the one who has murdered a hundred of your finest men.”
Kublan stepped between the commander and the concubine. This was the woman who washed his body and shared his bed and made him believe she truly cared about and even loved him.
Maharí looked up and caught his eye and begged for mercy. “Save me, gracious lord!”
CHAPTER 26
Meesha curled her legs beneath her and settled into the cushions on the broad sill of the solarium’s windows. The room was used for sleeping, but her father favored it as a sitting chamber because of the tall, stained-glass windows that caught the morning sun. She loved the room as well.
“Are you well?” Tolak asked.
“I am,” she said. “I am hoping Valnor returns tomorrow before . . .” She stopped, not wanting to speak Kadesh-Cor’s name. In the shadow of the conversation she’d overheard, she was reluctant to talk about her half brother, her displeasure in his coming, or what was to happen when he and his sons arrived.
“It is unlikely,” Tolak said. “When Valnor takes his eagle to hunt, no one can guess when he might return. I hope he is here to greet your brother, but I fear he may not be.”
Brother? The word jabbed her stomach like a dull blade. He is not my brother. But even as her thoughts rebelled, she confessed it was partly true. Half-truth. Her smile wavered.
“I’ve asked the steward to bring us a basket of pomegranates,” he said and glanced at Meesha with a knowing twinkle. She loved the sweet seeds and arils of the rare, exotic fruit, but a whole basket of pomegranates meant their conversation would be serious. She nibbled on her lower lip and studied his face in search of a clue.
Tolak was three score and four as far as Meesha knew. He was no longer the robust man he’d once been. He was softer now and slowed by a persistent pain in his back that kept him slightly stooped. Old wounds required him to limp. Time had stolen stature from his body but added to the sturdiness of mind.
The seasons of his life had wrinkled his skin, but the lines of his face had gotten stronger. His jaw was square, and the cleft of his chin was hidden by his grizzled beard. Except for the white at his temples, his hair was the color of dirty steel. Dark brown eyes peered
from beneath thick brows, pinched in a perpetual scowl that belied his gentle nature and benevolence. Even at rest, his face seemed disapproving, but Meesha knew it was not so.
“I am told you and Valnor share your mother’s disapproval of my intent to welcome Kadesh-Cor and my grandsons.”
Grandsons? Meesha had not thought of her half brother’s boys as her father’s grandchildren. The intrusion of the prince of the North into their lives was forcing her to reconsider feelings she had pushed into dark corners.
“We care about you,” she said.
“You do not think we should welcome them as honored guests?”
Meesha wet her lips and swallowed hard. “It is difficult for us to understand why you would want to honor the man who . . .” She was picking her words carefully when the steward entered with the basket of pomegranates.
“Ah, good, good,” Tolak said. “Please set them there. Thank you.” The steward did as he was told.
“Knives and napkins, and a bowl for the outer peel and pulp.” The steward smiled with a bow of his head.
“Thank you.” Meesha was already slicing through the reddish husk and pulling the succulent seeds from their cradles in the pulp before the steward could spread the napkins or lift the bowl from the basket. Tolak smiled.
The steward’s arrival was a timely interruption. Meesha knew she had started in the wrong direction with the same lament her father had heard from Katasha. She rolled the peel back and plucked the seeds out, one by one. She raised the fruit to her mouth and scraped a dozen seeds in with her teeth. Neither her mother nor her governess were there to worry about her manners, and she knew her father would not care. Meesha relished the bittersweetness of the fruit, took a deep breath, and began again. Her words were punctuated by the crunch of the crisp seeds in her mouth.
“You are kind to consider my opinion, but what I think should be of no consequence. You always know what is best. It is easy for us to prefer to turn them away with no more than water for their horses and provender for their men and beasts.” She heard the echo of her mother’s words and glanced up. Tolak’s brows went up and his forehead wrinkled. He knows.
“You might have come in and been comfortable while you eavesdropped,” he scolded, but Meesha could see it was not sincere.
“I’m sorry. I thought that . . .” She took a breath. “For Valnor and me—and Mother—these men are not our family. They are more like strangers.” She expected Tolak to comment, but he simply listened. “Even though we share your blood with them, they are foreign to us and . . .” She wondered if she should say it and decided she must. “And from what I know of these matters, they are considered by some to be . . . our enemies.”
“And what do you think you know of these matters?” Tolak asked.
A wash of pink flushed the clear side of her face. She knew only what little she had heard, and overheard, on the few occasions she was present and her father spoke of it. Otherwise it was hearsay and rumor and Valnor, who was the major source of what Meesha knew about most things.
She had asked her father about his past more than once, but he kept the early years of his life locked away like a book in a trunk, with pages he did not wish to see again.
Tolak raised his thick brows in a question as he waited for her answer.
The question was still in her head. “I know almost nothing except what you have inferred from time to time and from the idle prattling of the kitchen and hallways of Stókenhold Fortress and gossip in the village.” She knew the contempt her father held for the rumors that scurried from pub to pub, growing bigger with each telling like a drunken man’s nose with each slosh of ale. She laughed softly and said, “I would likely know everything about you, m’lord father, if you didn’t frown so on my going to taverns with Valnor.”
Tolak laughed. “The tales of the taverns about me are delicious, I have no doubt, but you can be sure they are nothing but fairy tales.”
“Tell me,” she implored. “I long to know all there is to know about your life before I was born and the few short years at Blackthorn. The years Sargon tortured me,” she added with a playful scowl. “I would really like to know all the bad things . . . and the truth from which you have protected me.”
“You have always been two strides ahead of me, sweet Meesha,” Tolak smiled, though it was tinged with sadness. “You are not an easy one to protect or beguile, but it is time for you to understand what I have done to impose this life on you and Valnor instead of the one you might have had. With Kadesh and his sons coming, it is important for you to understand what brought us to this place.” He glanced about the room, but Meesha knew he spoke of their life in exile and not the crumbling walls of Stókenhold Fortress.
“I could wish for no other childhood than the one you have given me,” she said. “And Valnor would say the same. I know he would.”
“Only because there was never a child as indomitable as you.” A smile softened the gravity of his expression. “I believe there is more purpose in Kadesh-Cor coming to Stókenhold Fortress than water and provender and the custom of hospitality on the King’s Road. He would not be allowed but by the authority of the king. You may know little of my past, but you know the core of my convictions, as I’ve expressed them many times.
“The rule of kings is not the natural order. It exists nowhere in nature except among humankind. Man is the only creature of creation given to greed, envy, ego, and the passion to rule over other men. The rule of kings is tyranny, and tyranny is a thief that robs a man of free will, dignity, and self-determined destiny. Who and what we might be is crushed beneath the boots of oppression.” His grave expression returned. “In giving you the history of our past, it is my hope that you will understand the present and who it is that comes on the morrow. What is done cannot be undone, and what happens tomorrow will surely determine your future.”
An ominous pall of responsibility settled over Meesha, both dark and hopeful.
“I trust you have sufficient pomegranates to endure such a long telling?”
“I would be willing to never eat another pomegranate if you will truly trust me with the things you’ve kept at a distance all these years.”
Tolak smiled with unusual tenderness.
“How old were you when your father killed the king?” she asked.
His smile faded, and he shook his head. He walked to the door and closed it.
“I am sorry,” Meesha said. “I am too blunt, and—”
“I was five years old when my father led the rebellion against the king.”
“Omnnús-Kahn the Unconquered,” Meesha said, grateful that her apology had been accepted.
Tolak nodded. “My father dragged him from Rockmire Keep and executed him with his own hand in the public square.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “As I grew from boy to man, my father described the execution of Omnnús-Kahn to me in such detail that I wondered sometimes if I had been there to see it.” He opened his eyes and looked at Meesha. “My father called it ‘my proud legacy.’”
Meesha knew of the incident, but to hear her father speak of it caused a chill to pass through her.
“I was prepared from my earliest days to perpetuate the legacy and legend of my father, Orsis-Kublan. I was tutored in language, arithmetic, history, protocol, art, astrology, and the skills of the hunt. Of all my lessons, the most impressionable and persistent were the exhortations of my father. He filled my head with tales of his courage, his benevolence, his honor, and his greatness.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I was his son. I was required to memorize a recitation of my father’s accomplishment in ending the tyranny of the Romagónian kings. I was raised with an inflated expectation of who I was and what I was to become.” Tolak paused, and Meesha could almost see the memories swirling in her father’s head.
“He told me I was ordained by t
he gods to follow him as king. When I was seven years old, my father took me to the Peacock Throne and put me in the ancient ceremonial chair. That ominous bird loomed over me with its piercing eyes and long fierce beak and frightening claws.” Tolak shook his head and laughed softly. “A prince is not supposed to cry, but I cried myself to sleep for a week. And then my father sat with me one night and explained that a prince was not supposed to cry.”
“You were just a boy,” Meesha said.
“To my father, I was a prince, destined to be a king. I was reminded every day that I was heir to the throne. I was trained in weapons and the art of war by the finest and fiercest kingsriders. When I was eighteen, I was commissioned as a captain and sent with a march of kingsriders against Ormmen, son of Remos-Kahan, ruler of House Romagónian.” He inhaled slowly, then looked at Meesha, his eyes filled with sorrow. “Ormmen was the grandson of Omnnús-Kahn—the king my father killed.” He turned away and began to pace. “There was a rumor of a rebellion in the south. A ragtag band of renegades called the Army of Orphans.”
“Uncle Romonik!”
“You know this story?”
She shrugged. “Only a tiny bit. Valnor told me some of it after he came back from his training in Rokclaw.”
“Had I known what would become of us, Romonik and me, I might have ridden north to Icenesses and become a hunter for the white bear.”
Meesha laughed. “Then I’d have never been.”
“And that would be a loss of unimaginable proportions.”
“The Army of Orphans?” she reminded him.
“It was reported that the insurgents sought revenge for the death of their parents at the hands of the rebel forces of Orsis-Kublan fourteen years before. I and my march of kingsriders faced Romonik at a place called Passage.”
Meesha hung on every word.
“Both of us came with the intent to kill the other. Who could have imagined how our fortunes would be changed?
“It was annum 1037. The ninth day of the Thunder Moon in season Mis’il S’atti. The summer was hot. It was my first campaign as a commander of kingsriders. My first battle, though why it is remembered as such, I’ve no idea. The infamous battle of Passage never took place. An earthquake ended the conflict before it began. Some believed it was caused by the sorceress of Dragonfell and the spirits of the underworld who take pleasure in the misery of humankind. Some said it was a sign the old gods were angry.”
The Immortal Crown Page 19