Meesha sensed the melancholy that gripped her father’s heart.
Tolak walked to the window and stood in silence. He gazed west across the fjord of Dragon Deep to the sea that flowed to the edge of the world. From where Meesha sat, he was a dark shape against the brightness beyond the arch of stone.
“It was the day my mother died,” he said at last. “She was killed in the earthquake. I did not know until I returned to Kingsgate. By then she was five days dead. ‘Swallowed by the earth’ was the way my father described it. Her body was never found.” Tolak spoke in a whisper as if even after all these years the bizarre circumstances of her death could not be real. “My father would not be reconciled. He said to me, ‘What treachery of the gods should ordain she be swallowed up by the earth in the blossom of her life?’ He wept and wailed long after the days of mourning were gone. He would not be comforted. The girl he had cherished from the day they met as children—the woman he had married—was gone. He loved her with passion and fidelity.”
Meesha was captured by the story and consumed by the emotions of her father. She listened with wide, unblinking eyes. She felt young, naive, and ignorant. There was so much she didn’t know, and questions flooded her mind. When her father turned back from the window, his face was in shadow.
“I see much of my mother in you.” He smiled. “You would have loved Edoora as I did, and, oh, how she would have adored you.”
“I wish I could have known her,” Meesha gushed, joyful that her father connected her to the woman he loved so much.
“It was her strength and her voice that kept Kublan from losing his way in the early years.”
Meesha noted that beyond a point in the history, Tolak no longer spoke of his father, but rather of “the king” or “Orsis-Kublan” or just “Kublan.”
“The king never recovered from the calamity of her death,” Tolak said after a long pause. “He soothed his sorrows with wine and deadened the anguish with juice of the poppy. The void left by her absence was filled with men who whispered flattering words and lies. In the days and months that followed her death, I watched him abandon the hope and promise of his coup d’état. He retreated into a world ruled by suspicion, jealousy, and fear. He demanded absolute loyalty from everyone around him.
“Those who obeyed were lavishly rewarded with titles, honors, gems, and feasts. Those who did not—those who refused the debauchery and perversions that had crept into the palace—were suspect and lost the king’s trust. Those who challenged him were treated harshly, imprisoned, or put to death.” Tolak’s anger surged like a wave thrown up by a slab of stone falling from the cliffs of Stókenhold Fortress.
“He added rituals of homage to the Peacock Throne and adorned himself in opulent apparel. He declared himself ‘divine ruler by order of the gods.’ Worse, he began to believe it.”
Meesha squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.
“Had Kublan remarried following the year of mourning, he might have overcome his grief. There were many from the great and minor houses who offered their daughters and sisters to take my mother’s place as first wife and queen. There was no honest affection, of course, only a vying for power. Kublan was crippled by a stupor of thought, and I am not sure whether he understood their conniving . . . or cared.”
Meesha realized how protective her father had been of her and how sheltered she was from the intrigues and conspiracies in the saga of kings. She was surprised at how little she knew of her family’s past and the emotional toll it had taken on her father.
“Kublan refused to remarry. He escaped the memory of my mother in the feigned affection of women for whom he had no feelings. It was said by some that the death of the queen unleashed an evil lurking in his dark nature.”
Meesha tried to listen without allowing her feelings to show on her face, but she failed.
Tolak said, “I’m sorry. These are hard tellings. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, no.” Meesha’s mouth was wide, and her fingers touched her lips. “Spare me none of it. I want to know. I need to understand.”
“Let us hope the darkness of the past can be forgotten and your future will be bright.”
“It shall be! I am sure of it.”
Tolak smiled at her optimism and continued, picking his way with caution. “You must remember that I was a child when he became the hero of the people. I heard them shouting his name. Like every boy, I knew the stories of the legendary heroes, but my hero was my father. How could it be otherwise? I saw none of the carnage or horror of the revolution, only the throngs of people cheering and shouting my father’s name wherever we went. Commoners lined the roadways and chanted, ‘Orsis! Orsis! Savior of the people!’” Tolak mimed the voices of the throngs making them sound distant. His voice broke, and he flushed at the unexpected emotions. “Ah,” he excused, “I fear my throat is dry.”
Meesha filled a chalice from the water vase and took it to her father. He nodded his appreciation and drank.
“Because I was a boy and understood only what I could see, they were happy years. Sometimes I rode double with my father through the village on his white, long-legged horse. I rode in the king’s carriage when he traveled to Mordan or Kingsgate. When I was fourteen, he took me north to the dominion of Blackthorn. I shall never forget it. We rode beneath those marvelous gates, and I beheld the graceful architecture of the old castle, the beauty of the grand manse, and the glorious gardens. We rode through orchards and endless hills of grass that flowed all the way to the giant trees at the far west edge. We sat astride our horses in the western hills as the sun was going down. All that I had seen was aglow in golden light. My father turned to me and said, ‘On the day you marry, Blackthorn shall be yours, and from that day you shall be prince of the North.’” He smiled. “Intoxicating for a boy of fourteen.”
“And eventually you married Arina. Tell me about her,” Meesha said, then almost as an afterthought, “about the mother of . . . my half brother.” Her throat tightened and her voice squeaked.
Tolak tipped his head to the side, and, after a moment of thought, said, “From the day he seized the Peacock Throne, Orsis-Kublan struggled to unite the great houses, dominions, and minor kingdoms. The nobles of House Romagónian gave homage in public, but in the shadows they despised and hated him. Even in the years of his virtue, my father could not contain hostilities nor lessen hatred. He spoke of equality, but those who believe themselves superior by birth or blood define equality very differently than a common peasant who lives outside the walls.”
Meesha suspected he was evading her question, but every answer held a thread of thought in the tangle of intrigue.
“I was forced to marry Arina by commandment of the King.”
“Forced? The King was your father.”
He nodded. “It was not the request of a father who had the slightest concern for the happiness of his son. It was the command of a tyrant who controlled my life. He was my father, but as he changed, I became more his property than his son.”
“And Arina?”
“My marriage to Arina began at the battle of Passage. Because of the earthquake, the rebels of the Army of Orphans of Rokclaw were not put to the sword, nor did they drink the king’s blood in an oath of allegiance as the king demanded.”
Meesha gagged at the thought but remained quiet.
“The rebellion of Rokclaw twisted Kublan’s judgment. He trusted no one and was consumed by jealousy. His suspicions evolved into a crippling delusion.
“So why did he make you marry a girl you didn’t even know?” Meesha persisted.
Tolak raised a finger in a promise that he would soon arrive at the part of the story Meesha was eager to hear. “In the days following my mother’s death, Kublan sent his army of kingsriders across the Narrows with the command to kill every man, woman, and child of House Romagónian. From there they were to march to Rokclaw, kill th
e rebel leader, Romonik, draw his body in the public square, and put his head on a spike. The headless bodies of the rebel Army of Orphans were to be hung by their heels on the road from Rokclaw to West River.”
Meesha’s mouth gaped open, her breathing shallow.
“Before the great slaughter could take place, Ormmen, son of Remos-Kahan and ruler of House Romagónian, offered an alliance to be sealed by marriage—his sister, Arina, to me, the son of the king.”
“His sister?”
Tolak nodded.
It was troubling enough to marry a girl I knew nothing about, but I was being wed to the sister of the man I had faced at Passage with every intention to kill.”
Meesha leaned forward to catch every word.
“Kublan’s threat of extermination was an extravagant boast, so an alliance, however fragile, was better than spilling the blood of his elite kingsriders.
“You were a grown man, a captain of kingsriders, but your father never asked you or discussed it?”
“By the time I learned of it, the arrangements had been made and oaths taken. My objections were met with a threat of violence.”
“And you had never even seen her?”
“I saw her for the first time on the day of our marriage in annum 1038. She was seventeen. It was the opening day of the Tournament of Harvest, on the fifteenth day of Samna, Moon of the Flying Duck.
“The king presented us. I say ‘king’ as by then I rarely thought of him as my father. Arina was led to the rostrum and given to me by her brother, Ormmen, whom I had not seen since the battle of Passage.
“Was she pretty?”
Meesha’s question stopped him, and he laughed out loud. “Ah, I fear I am giving you too many facts and not the tale of romance a woman might prefer.”
Meesha blushed.
“I confess she was a comely girl, to my great relief, and though I deeply resented the imposition of my father, I made an effort to act kindly toward her. The poor girl was trembling like a cornered rabbit.
“Kublan’s oration was a pompous soliloquy on the significance of the historic alliance and friendship between Houses Kublan and Romagónian. He said nothing about Arina. Nothing of her beauty, her virtue, or even the traditional invocation that the gods would grant her a fruitful womb.”
“And what of you? Did he say nothing of your valor or your strength? Your remarkable intelligence and breathtaking handsomeness?” Meesha teased, with obvious affection.
Tolak smiled at her humor, but Meesha could see in his eyes that the king had said nothing to honor his son.
“No one believed a marriage could cure the rage and hatred between our two houses. Arina was the granddaughter of the murdered king, and her husband was the son of the man who had cut off his head.” Inhaling deeply and letting his breath slip away in a deep sigh, he slumped back into his chair with the weary look of a man returning from an arduous journey. He shook his head as if the madness of what had happened so long ago still baffled him. He looked at Meesha. “Our marriage was a yoke of glass on the neck of oxen,” he said. “How could it be more?”
Meesha set aside her half-eaten pomegranate. She wanted to put her arms around her father and hug him the way she had so many times when she was a little girl. “I can hardly imagine what it would be like to marry someone I didn’t know.”
“You’ve not finished your pomegranate,” Tolak said, deflecting her comment with a smile.
She picked up a few of the seeds that remained on the napkin. They were tart, and her lips puckered. The question she wanted to ask her father was not a question she should ask, but she could not restrain her curiosity.
“You said she was comely. Was she pretty? Beautiful?”
Tolak’s face relaxed, and a twinkle came to his eyes. “Not as beautiful as you or your mother, but lovely in her own way. She was very young, but then so was I, though I thought myself a man of maturity and extraordinary wisdom.”
They laughed together, and Meesha asked her burning question as delicately as she knew how.
“Did you ever . . . come to love her?”
“Love?” Tolak stood and walked to the window again. “The longer I live, sweet Meesha, the less I understand about the mysterious emotion we call love. Is romance the same as love?” He asked the question softly. “I confess there was a curious excitement in meeting the girl I was to marry on the day of our wedding, but was that feeling romance or love?” He shook his head. “I was so filled with the bitterness of being told whom I was to marry that romance had no chance, and certainly not love.”
“Were you friends at least? Mother told me friendship is more important in marriage than love.”
“Arina and I were never friends. Our marriage was a delicate truce that kept her family and my family from killing one another for thirteen years. But she was a good woman, a fine lady. She was kind. Patient. Being fond of her was not difficult, and my expressions of affections were not unpleasant—but love?”
“But you lived together, and you must have . . .” Meesha changed her mind. She could not ask that question. She blushed when Tolak turned from the window with raised eyebrows.
“Yes, Arina gave me a son,” he said in answer, “but Kadesh-Cor was the only child she bore.” He turned again to the window. “If there was a time I finally and fully loved the woman given to me as wife, it was in the dark days before she died. You cannot imagine the horrors wrought by the plague of black death. I stayed at her side day and night until the end. I held her in my arms to quell her chills and cool her fever the best I could. I fed her broth and bathed her feet, and when her skin turned black and her toes began to rot away I rubbed her with oil. I cried to all the gods, past and present, including those I’d disavowed, and pleaded with the great cause of the universe to spare her life.”
Meesha had always loved her father, but she had never felt such deep affection and empathy as she did at that moment.
“I was a fool to wait so long,” Tolak said after a long pause. “The discord and aloofness that spoiled our years together were swallowed into nothingness by my grave concern for her in those final days and hours. It was not until I abandoned myself to taking care of her, with no consideration of myself, that I realized I loved her. When she died, my deepest regret was that I had not loved her so for all our lives.”
Meesha blinked, hoping to stop the tears, but they escaped and wet her cheeks. She was grateful her father was still looking out the window. When he turned back to her, the smile on his face left Meesha certain the goodness and joy of his life with Katasha had more than filled the void of that past sorrow and regret.
CHAPTER 27
Kublan pointed to the parchment in the Raven’s fist. “And this is the proof of it?”
“Taken from her hand as she was about to enter the bazaar and liaise with a merchant of Wilde Crossing, a swindler who trades in bluestone from the pits of desolation.”
“From her very hand?”
“By Tonguelessone, who followed her.”
Kublan glanced at Tonguelessone. She nodded, and he shuddered with a wave a nausea, without wondering how she followed such conversations.
“Was it intended for the bandit, Drakkor?” Kublan narrowed his eyes until they were tiny black holes beneath his grizzled brows.
“We suspect the message was intended for the bandit, but we are not sure,” the Raven said. “For whomever it was intended, it is treachery.”
“By the wrath of Anu, could you not extract a confession from the merchant and leave this woman be?” Kublan glared at the punisher, who trembled at the king’s anger in spite of his brawn.
“He died on the wheel ’afore I could loosen his tongue, m’lord. I had hardly—”
The king cut him off. “Then you are to blame for this!” He looked at Maharí and struggled to contain his rage. “Read it to me. Read it! What does it say?�
� he bellowed.
“We can’t read it, m’lord,” the Raven said and nudged the loremaster.
“It is written in a hieroglyph unknown to us, m’lord king.” The loremaster shuffled forward and took the parchment from the Raven. He stepped to the archway that opened to the bridge and held it up to catch daylight. “Fragments of the archaic language tangled into a scribbled code of sorts, I’d say. I’ve deciphered a few of the characters and guessed at others.” His bony finger traced a certain group of characters from right to left. “Here, for example, the meaning is ‘to disembark’ or ‘landfall,’ and this is a designation of time.”
“First Landing?” the Raven suggested.
“Yes, yes, that could be it.”
“Meaning perhaps the king’s council at First Landing?”
The loremaster studied the text for a moment, then his face brightened with a smile that failed to raise his sagging cheeks. “The archaic word is ‘gathering,’ but yes, ‘a gathering at early landfall’ could mean the same.”
“I want to know what it says and who it was intended for!” the king barked.
“That is why we have arrested the woman and brought her for confession,” the Raven said.
“There are single words and inferences but sparse context,” the loremaster offered. “‘War’ is repeated in several places, the literal meaning is ‘place of killing,’ but . . . And here it speaks of ‘furious ones,’ which might be ‘warrior’ or ‘one who fights.’ The symbol for moon, here”—he tapped the parchment—“appears several places and always with . . .” He narrowed his eyes, then shook his head. “‘High place’ or ‘tall place.’” He shrugged. “This symbol is most curious. It is the character for ‘beast,’ or ‘dragon,’ perhaps, but with the added curl, you see here—” He held up the paper, though it was too far away to be seen by the king. “The mark could mean ‘of ancient times.’”
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