The Immortal Crown

by Kieth Merrill

  The prince ordered twelve wineskins filled for the expedition.

  “For nourishment and courage,” the cook said as he strapped the swollen leather flasks on the frame of the pack.

  The hunters prepared to leave while most of the camp was still asleep. The kings­riders at guard, the gillies, and the camp cook arose before dawn to finish their tasks. Horsemaster Raahud was up as well to make certain the packs, tack, and saddles were properly placed and sufficient for the demands of the journey.

  Raahud pulled Qhuin aside before the sun had fully risen. “You can do this, Qhuin,” he said. “You are perhaps the only man on earth who can. You’re the finest horseman I have ever known.”

  Raahud had never called him by his name before. Despite the chasm of inequality between them, Raahud gave Qhuin the kind of robust hug a man might give his brother in a reunion at the tavern.

  “Find him, Qhuin. Bring him back,” Raahud said, and then a laugh laden with angst rumbled up from his barrel chest as he added, “For all our sakes as well as yours.”

  Qhuin nodded.

  Hearing Horsemaster Raahud speak his name. The level talk. The praise. So much had changed, but Raahud’s embrace spoke to Qhuin in a way words never could. Qhuin understood that only when royal eyes were shut in slumber was it safe for a man like Raahud to embrace a slave.

  But even at that hour not every royal eye was closed.

  Sargon peered through the crack of the flap of his tent. His eyes were a web of red from lack of sleep and blurred by a night of spiced ale. He blinked to bat away the pain in his head and see through the fog of drunkenness.

  The princeling kicked the bare foot of the hulk of a man snoring on the animal skin behind him. Kings­rider Algord was up on one knee with his short sword raised before he was fully awake.

  “You must go now,” Sargon said, nudging the man again with his foot. “They are prepared to leave much sooner than I thought.” The princeling peered through the opening again, taking care not to move the fabric. “Move quickly. The ride will sober you soon enough. I will tell the captain you are taken sick on spoiled meat and are convalescing in my tent.”

  “The captain will not trouble himself, m’lord. I am the least of the company, but what of your father?”

  “My father cares less for your life than your captain does. He is vexed by the imposition of kings­riders on this expedition all together.” Sargon helped the large man to his feet with a grunt and no little effort. “Be swift about it,” he said and turned back to the open slit in the tent. He watched as Qhuin fastened the last of the packs to the cradle on the milk-white.

  Sargon squinted at the slave, his eyes intense and full of hate. His rancorous mood came out in silent mutterings. My father is a fool—worse than a fool! Can he not see the slave’s intent to flee? And he would send that poor bastard Nimra to his death—not that it matters. The slave will surely murder the boys and be forever gone.

  Algord finished dressing. He wore a leather breastplate instead of his iron armor. Sargon fetched the man’s baldric, scabbard, and broadsword.

  Algord stared at the princeling for a long moment. “You are certain the prince shall never know of this?”

  “He suffers from wounds in his head. He may not even live. It shall be as I promise.”

  “Swear it.”

  “You challenge my honor?”

  “Swear it.” Algord showed no fear or respect for the princeling.

  “By the gods, I swear I shall bring you from Kingsgate to Black­thorn, where you shall be a captain and given all that I have promised—­including the courtesan Leandra.”

  Algord flushed with humiliation, having confided his affections to the princeling while drunk on ale. “Swear by your blood.”

  “Do not test me, Algord, son of Gorshon.”

  The man pursed his lips and tugged on the lump of flesh that had once been an ear.

  Sargon swallowed his anger and pulled a dagger from his belt. He drew blood from his palm and gripped the thick hand of the kings­rider. The wound was deep, and a dark drop of blood stained the toe of Sargon’s boot.

  “By my blood!” He squeezed hard, then wiped his bloody hand on the ragged flesh of Algord’s scarred face. “But should you fail me, it shall be the blood of your throat that stains my boots.”

  Qhuin swung into the saddle and led his companions toward the west side of the camp. He rode a short-legged stallion the color of old bones with a spattering of charcoal on his face and neck. The hunting dogs followed.

  He harbored hope that the prince might rise to bid them farewell. Or was it a desire for Kadesh-Cor to reaffirm his promise of freedom? Qhuin found it startling to think he was on an errand for a highborn of royal blood, but until he delivered Equus to Kadesh-Cor, he remained a slave.

  No, I am a man bound by honor who shall never be a slave again. I shall be free. He quivered as the joyous thought washed over him. I shall be free, or I shall be dead.

  A black wheatear joined the warbler in a dawn chorus of birds that added a timbre of optimism to the bright morning.

  He and his companions rode from the camp and followed the track through the copse of aspen where the courtesans’ crimson tent was pitched. The yellow tassels shimmered in the morning light as if braided with threads of gold. Qhuin caught the movement of the flap as they approached the entrance, and his thoughts returned to the previous night.

  A little after midnight, Nimra had escorted the courtesan Leandra to the royal tent where Qhuin had been given quarters.

  “She is a gift from the prince,” Nimra said.

  Leandra had stepped forward and let her silk wrap fall away. Her white skin glowed in the flickering light of the single lamp.

  “Knowing you may be killed in the wilds,” Nimra explained, “our good prince sent his . . . He asked Leandra to attend you tonight.”

  Qhuin’s heart had pounded at the sight of the woman standing naked before him, her beauty scorching a memory that would never fade.

  The surge of heat that robbed his head of reason was doused by the cold-water voice of Rusthammer. “The code of chivalry is almost lost. Respect for women suffocates in the liberties assumed by the very men who once defended such ideals.”

  Rusthammer had learned the code of chivalry from the warriors whose armor he had fashioned. He embraced the highest code of gallantry as his own and offered it to Qhuin: To protect the weak, to refrain from wanton offense, to speak the truth, to respect the honor of women.

  Qhuin had been eight years old when Rusthammer sat him down for a man-to-man talk about why there were so many rabbits in the world. When the boy was older, the blacksmith talked to him about the different relationships between men and woman. He told Qhuin about his wife, about honor and abiding love.

  Qhuin never forgot Rusthammer’s face when he told him about her death. When she was killed, he swore a vow of chastity. “I will be with her again in the clouds of blessings,” he had whispered, “and she will know of my fidelity or failings.”

  Rusthammer was ever present in Qhuin’s life, but more than a notion of chivalry, Qhuin felt a sense of fidelity for the girl whose kiss could still be felt. A curious sense that she trusted him. Meesha.

  Qhuin turned his eyes away from Leandra. “I mean no offense, m’lady—and I am grateful for your kindness—but you are free to go.” He wanted to explain but words failed him.

  Leandra flushed, confused by the rejection. She lifted the silk from the floor and clutched it to cover herself. She hurried from the tent but stopped at the open flap to look back.

  “I shall be punished.” Leandra’s face was fearful and cold in the blue light of the moon.

  “He shall not know of it,” Qhuin said.

  The smile on her stained red lips was bewildered but, in a strange way, hopeful. She floated to one knee in a swirl of silk and bowed her hea
d in deep respect before slipping into the night.

  “Please express my gratitude to the prince,” Qhuin said to Nimra.

  “I will, m’lord.”

  “No cause to mention I chose not to accept his offering.”

  “Of course,” Nimra said, his gaze filled with curiosity and respect.

  The memory of the night faded in the bright light of morning. Qhuin’s horse was eager to run. It snorted with impatience. He was about to give the animal its head when Leandra stepped from the tent into a misty beam of sunlight. The glow ignited her hair and kissed her shoulders with a rim of white. She was disheveled by slumber but modestly adorned and scrubbed clean of rouge. With the softness of her gray eyes no longer rimmed in black, she looked younger somehow. No longer the courtesan of the night.

  Her smile was also no longer the beguiling temptation of a courtesan but the warm affection of a woman with genuine feelings, albeit confused and unexpected. She walked forward to the path as the riders approached.

  Qhuin reined to a stop. Their eyes connected, and he felt his face redden. The rush of desire he’d felt for her last night came again, but the blush came more from what hadn’t happened.

  Qhuin never considered he might experience love the way Rust­hammer had explained it. Slaves were bred like cattle for strong bloodlines. In spite of his physical prowess, Qhuin was never coupled. Was it because of his dark skin? The superstitions against those of indigenous blood? He never knew, but he was grateful for the exclusion.

  Now he nurtured the possible hope that honorable love and even marriage might yet be his as a free man. His dreams of freedom were always the strongest on the nights when he held the stone as he slept. He could feel it even now, pressed against his leg as if it was a part of him. The secret to his past. The promise of freedom in his hand. A tremor of hope shivered through him.

  Leandra lifted her hand and offered him a handkerchief. “I am no lady, m’lord, but I pray you will carry my token on your quest.”

  Qhuin knew the tradition. When a warrior rode into battle facing the possibility he would be killed, his lady offered a personal token in exchange for his promise to return it to her when the fighting was done. The obligation to return a lady’s cherished possession was supposed to bestow courage and extra strength in order to return alive and return the precious item.

  “I am no warrior, m’lady, but you honor me.” Qhuin lifted the token from her fingers. The handkerchief was woven of silk and fine linen and embroidered with tiny symbols in a swirl of graceful lines. He folded it and slipped it beneath his leather breastplate, over his heart.

  “And will you bring it again to me, m’lord?”

  “Destiny willing.” He smiled.

  “May the gods go with you.” She backed away with a flutter of fingers, then raised a single finger and, touching her lips, floated a kiss his way.

  Qhuin touched the flank of his horse with his iron spurs. The power­ful animal bolted forward, and Qhuin rode with his companions from the camp toward his destiny. He did not look back.

  CHAPTER 72

  The breath of the dragon was fire and the dragon was Maharí and her flesh stretched over jutting bones and a black star splayed from the hole in her naked belly and she writhed to archaic rhythms and rose from crashing waves on the wings of a great bird and glistened in the sunlight and her laughter was a whirling wind and the Lord of Vengeance ascended in the storm and pushed the king from the bridge and he fell and was falling falling falling and the pounding of the waves was the pounding of his heart and it pounded pounded pounded—

  Kublan jerked upright in his bed of furs, quivering as he escaped a dreaming death. He gasped for breath in cadence with the pounding that filled his sleeping chamber.

  The king’s bedroom was dark except for the glow of embers in the fireplace. The air was acrid with the smell of smoke. Kublan rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, pushing away the cobwebs of the night.

  Who dares come to my private chambers in the middle of the night? Where are my watchmen?

  He looked at the door. It was closed and locked from the inside by an iron bar that had been set into a cradle. Talons gripped his bowels like a raptor crushing a rabbit. He had not set the bar in place.

  The pounding came again, and his grand bed shook. When he turned and saw the cause of it, he fell back with a gasp of terror.

  An enormous shape of a man loomed at the bottom of the bed. The figure hammered the pommel of his sword against the thick wood of the bedpost. In his other hand he held a heavy sack.

  Kublan stopped breathing.

  “You sleep soundly, Orsis,” the dark figure said, his voice the sound of boots walking on crushed rock.

  “Watchmen!” the king yelled.

  “Your men are gone for the night. Sleeping by command of the king.” A mocking laugh sounded in the darkness.

  “Watchmen!” Kublan yelled again, but his voice was weak. A spike of terror in his throat prevented him from swallowing. He narrowed his eyes to penetrate the darkness. “Who are you? What trouble cannot wait until morning? By the gods, you shall wish that—”

  The intruder interrupted with another throaty laugh. “Ah, but you will forgive me, m’lord, when you see the prize I have brought.” He sheathed his sword and walked to the fireplace. He dropped the heavy sack. It struck the hearthstones with a thud.

  “You’ll want better light to see by, m’lord.” He squatted and poked the embers with an iron rod and then put another log on the fire. Hot coals ignited dry wood.

  The man rose from his stoop, laid the poker aside, and faced the king. The firelight painted his face with an orange glow. He wore the boiled leather and iron of a kings­rider, but no helm. His skin was dark, and his hair and beard were the color of river mud. His nose was large and broken.

  “By the gods, Captain Machous!” Kublan’s laugh held a note of scolding. It was not like the captain to ignore propriety, and the king was unnerved that the man had entered his sleeping chamber uncontested, but the rush of warm relief he felt pushed his annoyance aside. His favored captain would be forgiven. “You frightened me nearly to death. I trust you have good news to report.”

  “Indeed.” Machous’s smile was strangely cold and arrogant.

  The captain’s omission of the royal title did not go unnoticed, but Kublan was eager for news. “So the rumors are true? You found the bandit’s stronghold and cannot wait to boast of your triumph.” He slapped his thigh and laughed.

  Machous extended his chin with the slightest of nods. The arrogant smile remained.

  “Tell me.” Kublan crawled to the bottom of his bed on his knees in spite of the pain in his bones. “Did you find Drakkor?” His eyes flitted to the sack, and when he spoke again, his voice was pitched higher. “Did you kill that fiendish dog who calls himself Blood of the Dragon?”

  Machous lifted the sack. Something heavy bulged at the bottom where the coarsely woven fabric was colored by a dark stain and stiffened by a blackened crust.

  Kublan stared at the sack and then jerked upright at the sudden dawning. “You brought me his head!” He exhaled a wheezing gasp at the image flooding into consciousness—himself standing at the council of First Landing before all the rulers, nobles, and firstborn heirs, holding Drakkor’s severed head in his hand.

  The vision was so clear. So exhilarating. So destined. “For your great triumph, Machous,” he said, “I will make you commander over all the armies of Kandelaar!”

  Machous walked from the fireplace to the carved footboard. “You are generous, gracious lord.” A fleeting smile confessed a private thought. “I shall take great pleasure in commanding the armies of Kandelaar.”

  Machous opened the sack and reached inside.

  The king raised up on his aching knees for a better view.

  Machous lifted a decapitated head by its tangled hair and held it
up for the king to see. Backlit by the fire, the face was in shadow.

  “You are the greatest of champions,” Kublan exclaimed and clapped his hands together.

  The captain stepped forward, and the flickering light fell across the dead man’s face. A lumpy scar ran from the bridge of the broken nose to the jaw; the skin was raw where it passed through the beard. The eyes were dark, open and empty.

  Kublan felt as if an iron fist with knuckles of barbed steel slammed into his chest. His ecstasy turned to horror.

  It was the head of Captain Machous.

  Impossible!

  “Ahh!” Kublan scrambled backward in dread and slammed into the headboard. The bold relief of gargoyles carved into the thick wood dug into his spine. A beast with the wings of a dragon, the claws of a bear, and the head of a cat. The ancient gods of the tower chiseled in black wood.

  He couldn’t breathe. He gasped and clutched his chest as a bolt of pain shot through his body and down his arm. His heart pummeled out of control.

  The man who looked like Machous threw the dead captain’s head onto the furs where it tumbled forward until it bumped against the cowering king.

  “He was a fierce warrior, your Captain Machous,” the intruder said.

  Kublan retched, but there was nothing but bitter bile. The unblinking eyes of his dead captain stared at him. He covered the ghastly object with the bedcover, his limbs shaking.

  I have gone mad! The thought trembled through him, and he curled up like a child and abandoned himself to destruction.

  In that moment, a burst of strange light filled the room. It was palpable, bright and blinding, but at the same time dark.

  Kublan covered his eyes. When he dared look again, the shafts of light were converging on a glowing stone in the palm of the intruder’s hand as if caught in the vortex of a whirling wind.