by J. Naomi Ay
"What is everybody down there looking at?" Katie pointed out the window. The entire Palace including the beach side was surrounded by thousands of people who at the moment were all staring up at us.
"There's a huge crowd," I remarked and as we entered the courtyard, I saw that it, as well as all the open balconies and passage ways, were filled with on-lookers.
"What are they waiting for?" Katie asked again.
"You," Senya smirked, snapping off his cell. "Or maybe me?"
"Very funny," she said and looked behind us and up in the sky as if she might spot the real reason for all the attention.
The limo landed and so did the dozen security pods that had inconspicuously accompanied us the entire way. Katie studied them as we taxied to a halt and the door was opened for our disembarkation. I jumped up to go out first. It was a safety rule for if someone was lying in wait with the intent to shoot the Prince, I or my counterpart should be first to take the bullet in his stead. I survived the three steps down to the ground and joined my father, Lord Dickon, and a few others at the landing.
Turning back toward the limo's door, we all awaited Senya. Maybe he was finishing his smoke, maybe he was arguing with Katie, or maybe he was busy talking to Thad for he seemed to be taking an inordinately long time. The crowd got restless. They began to chant.
"Senya, Senya," they sang over and over. My father and I looked about the inner Palace and listened to the voices which rose above the Palace walls and were joined by a chorus from outside. "Senya, Senya." It was an extraordinary sound and sight to behold.
"Go see what's taking so long, Berk." My father motioned to the door and so I mounted again the three steps and poked my head inside. Katie was sitting on Senya's lap, her arms around his neck.
"Regardless of what happens in the next few hours, we will go back to Rozari tonight," he was saying. "Just focus on that."
"Why are you telling me this? What's going to happen here? Why is everybody singing your name?"
"I love you Katie. I love only you."
"Senya, you're freaking me out!"
"Come on," he said, pushing her off his lap. "It's time to go. Berkan survived both his debarkation and another embarkation so it is now safe for me. I will go first and then you may follow. Keep your eyes down and when I indicate that you are to kneel, you will do so and stay down until I tell you otherwise."
"Excuse me?" I heard her shriek as I re-joined my father's side. The crowd went silent as Senya appeared in the doorway though the chanting continued from outside the Palace walls. By the time Senya had stepped onto the gold cloth laid for his traversing, everyone was on their knees and many were making obeisance as if he were already the King. Katie stood in the doorway and surveyed all this, a horrified expression upon her face. Senya offered his hand to Lord Dickon.
"Your Royal Highness," Lord Dickon said and kissed it. He accepted Senya's assistance to rise back to his feet. My father kissed Senya's hand as well but rose on his own.
"I'm going to be sick," Katie said from the door of the limo.
"Madame." I offered her my hand which she pointedly refused and stepped down to the cloth. Senya, flanked by Dickon and my father, was already heading toward the Big House. "Madame," I said again and this time offered her my arm. "Come on, Katie," I whispered in Rozarian. "Like Senya said, you're going home tonight. You just need to put on a show for a few hours." Katie stared at me as if she'd never seen me before and I had just magically materialized at her side. Thankfully, she took my arm.
"Tell me what's going on, Berkan," she whispered, glancing at the crowds who since Senya had passed were now rising to their feet and staring curiously at her.
"You're marrying Rehnor's most eligible bachelor today," I replied with a wink. "Congratulations. Lucky for you."
I escorted Katie to Senya's apartment where we were promptly met by Lady Fern and Lady Kerri. Lady Fern's husband was a cousin of the King and a senior member of the cabinet while Lady Kerri was rumored to be an illegitimate daughter of the King and one of Queen Moira's sisters. Both of them were older than Katie by at least twenty years and quickly took her away from me and in to another suite designated for her use. I watched them disappear down the hall and memorized what they were wearing and how they curtseyed to Katie so that I could tell Luci all about it when I saw her later.
I knew Luci had an idea that my friendship with Senya would open the door to these apartments for her. Maybe if she and Katie were to become friends, Luci might join the staff here. We had a new baby our son, Marik, and that was Luci's first priority in my mind.
A valet came rushing around the corner as I stood there pondering and nearly knocked me flat as he scurried into Senya's apartment. I followed him in, whereupon I found my father, another valet, the hairdresser and manicurist.
"Where's Senya?" I asked my father who was gazing out the window at the crowds lining the beach.
"I don't like all those people out there," my father responded. "It is neither safe nor secure. Anyone of them could be climbing up the walls and entering these rooms."
"Why don't you close off the beach?" I suggested.
"The King will not allow me to. He believes all should be allowed to enjoy nature’s bounty. It is altruistic yes, but not practical in my mind."
"I agree with you, Loman," Senya said, coming from the shower wrapped in a towel. “Where the fuck is my robe?”
"Here, Sir." The valet jumped up, presenting a new robe, identical to the one found on a dead homeless woman during the terrible snowstorm a month ago. Senya put it on and sat down, allowing the hairdresser to sort through his long curly tresses and the manicurist to deal with his ugly toe nails. The second valet emerged from the closet with a white dress coat, a pair of formal black trousers, a silk shirt, a cloth of gold sash, and an assortment of jewelry and adornments with which to decorate Senya.
Senya let everyone pamper, pull, prod, and poke him while drinking several cups of black coffee, smoking no less than four cigarettes and checking his email. In less than an hour, he was clean and dressed in his uniform with epaulets and aiguillettes, and the gold sash wrapped around his waist and knotted so the free ends draped to his knee. His hair was pulled back and secured with a clip containing more than fifty karats of diamonds and a five karat Karupta firestone dangled from his left ear.
The ladies returned just as the final touches were being added, two medallions on thick gold chains symbolizing that he was Crown Prince twice over, which looped through the epaulets and hung mid chest, as well as four medallions with ribbons that affixed over the left breast and symbolized each of his four duchies, the Light Continent and the Dark and the two moons.
"That was certainly easier than when you were twelve," my father remarked and then suggested that I go dress as I was to be included in the audience. I was about to do so however, as I said, the ladies had just returned from their own preparations and Katie was blocking the doorway.
As per Senya's request, she was dressed in a traditional Mishnese gown in white silk satin with a gold lace overlay that was embellished with thousands of seed pearls. She wore several long strands of pearls looped around her waist and a diamond and sapphire necklace at her throat. She was stunning and with her curly golden hair and deep blue eyes, it occurred to me there was something almost angelic in her looks. I imagined her with a pair of gossamer wings flowing behind her and strangely, it seemed appropriate. I felt warm behind my eyes and I knew that Senya was borrowing them to see her.
"An apropos thought, Berkan," he said softly to me.
“Good heavens!” she cried. “You've got more gold bars on you than the Commodore of the Fleet!”
“She doesn't know,” I nodded to my father. “He hasn't told her.”
“Looks pretty damn obvious to me,” my father smirked but I could see the pride in his smile. Just then the Lord Chamberlain poked his head through the door and told us it was time.
Chapter 15
Moira
I despised the child. From his first breath, he looked at us with those wicked silver eyes and brought evil upon us.
“Take him, Moira,” my husband the King had said, thrusting the creature at me as my own daughter lay dying in front of me.
“No!” I screamed. “No, never!”
I ran to my daughter and held her head against my breast, willing her heart to beat, her lungs to take air. I screamed and screamed until my own lungs could no longer breathe and then they had to pry me away from her, my angel, my love who looked at me with her clear grey eyes even as they ceased to see. Days, weeks perhaps even months later, I would speak to no one not even the King. What they did with the baby I did not know nor did I care for it should have been him whose body was incinerated in a great glass coffin not my beautiful Lydia's.
There was a time when my husband sought my affections again. There was a time when he came to my bed and begged of me for my forgiveness. I turned from him. I was cold to him and it mattered not to me. He could throw me out. He could take a dozen other wives and proclaim another Queen but I cared not. It was my son who brought me back to this life. It was my son and his companion Lord Phylyp who gave me the smallest pleasures.
“Eat this, Mother,” my son said and sat with me, feeding me like an infant so I would not waste away.
“Wear this, Darling Mummy,” Phylyp said, for he had come to call me this and I did not object. “You will look divine. Let me call the hairdresser. You will look magical with some highlights and a fresh curl.”
My Lydia was dead. The child was gone and now my Akan stood unimpeded as heir yet still the King would not proclaim him so.
“Speak to him, Mother,” Akan begged when I was up and about again. “Tell him to make me Crown Prince as I should have always been.”
I went and humbled myself before the King and pleaded with him to make our son his heir. There were other children of his, illegitimate girls, two even begat by my sisters, yet Akan was his only male child.
“No!” the King replied resoundingly and proclaimed that the MaKennah still lived, though I knew not where, and the crown belonged to him.
“He fears you will never beget your own heir,” I replied over breakfast one morning. I had come to dine with Akan and Phylyp nearly every meal.
“I can,” Akan protested whilst Phylyp laughed.
“No you can't, Akie,” he chortled. “Not without a turkey baster. You'll never be able to get it up for a girl and I have not a womb.”
“We shall have you implanted with one,” Akan teased, to which my stomach turned.
“I shall not like to listen to this further,” I declared and rose from the table. “If you wish to be King, my son, you best build yourself an army and prepare to wrest the crown from the Karut's head. Surely it cannot be difficult. Surely there are many Mishnese who would rather see it on your head, a true son of the Saint, than on that half-bred son of the Infidel.”
This my son did do and along with Phylyp they garnered a legion of followers. I feared they were not a strong army though for the people of Mishnah, like my husband were hesitant about Akan. They discussed it in the press and the government councils and the Parliament, for the MaKennah was long since disappeared by then and no one knew if he would return.
If only Akan could find a woman who would declare her love for him. He could wear her on his arm like a fine trophy and somehow she might become impregnated and then all the talk in the press and the discussions from the Lords and the Councils about Akan's unsuitability would cease. My son would be Crown Prince and then the King and I would enjoy my tenure as Queen Mother to both my son and Phylyp and perhaps even be blessed with a suitable grandchild, however conceived.
It was near the twelfth anniversary of my blessed daughter's death that my son did come to me with the most distressing news.
“The Karut is back,” he sneered, clearly enraged. Phylyp’s face wore a bandage which covered long scratches. He petted Akan’s arm and cooed soothingly but neither Akan nor I would have it.
“No!” I cried. “From where? How?”
“The Lightie brought him in from the streets of Old Mishnah, Mother!” Akan practically screamed. “You should see him, filthy dirty, stinking, little street rat and Mother, he has claws instead of toes! Look what he has done to Phylyp’s face!”
“Are his eyes still wicked?” I gasped.
“Yes,” Phylyp answered. “He looks at you with those evil silver eyes and it is as if the Devil himself is gazing upon you. He's horrid. Absolutely horrid, Darling Mummy.” Phylyp stroked his bandage and pouted.
“And Father will make him King instead of me!” Akan shrieked, tears filling his emerald green eyes.
“Well, you shall just have to fix that,” I said. “Will he live here now?”
“Yes, Darling Mummy,” Phylyp replied. “He's been given Lydia's apartment.”
“A travesty,” I seethed, for I was angered beyond all words.
“We shall just have to make sure he does not live very long,” Akan whispered, swiping away his tears.
“And then there shall be no more issues,” Phylyp agreed conspiratorially with a wicked smile. “There is no other heir.”
The child was dreadful. The child was rotten to the core. He did not speak, he would not study, he would not eat, and he deigned to look down upon us as if we were the servants and he already the King.
“Punish him,” Akan told his father. “You cannot let him be so insolent. Is he not a servant of the people, Father? Let him learn humility and servitude.”
They flogged the child. My ladies cried that they punished the child so harshly but my heart was cold to him. He did not need my care. He never cried. He never made a sound. He took their beatings and glared at them with those evil eyes and all the while Akan was setting the wheels in motion to eliminate him. He couldn't though. My son's people were inept and the Lightie was always protecting the boy. Akan failed and the child was whisked away to Karupatani where those sons of the Infidel protected him.
Then the boy died. Akan claimed it was the Karuts who killed him but he and Phylyp smiled mischievously when they said this and I knew my son had finally succeeded. My poor king husband was devastated. Who would know that he had cared so much for the little Karut? He wept copious tears, more than he had ever wept for our dear Lydia. Overnight, my husband turned into an elderly man and even the simplest task seemed to be beyond him.
“It is your opportunity,” I counselled my son, who sat at his father's desk when the king was too ill to do so.
My son opened the Parliament and attended the councils and appeared in all manner of ceremonies so that it became natural to all that he should succeed his father. Mishnah fell into a great recession and then depression in those days but it was not my son's fault. My son was smart and did all that could be done. It was the evil corporations that stole the people's money.
One day in the twenty-seventh year after my daughter's death, I saw the Lightie running through the courtyard at breakneck speed to board a spaceplane.
“Where is he off to?” I mused to Phylyp who was holding my arm as we paraded. We were walking the high corridors so that all the tourists who came to see the Palace might catch a glimpse of us, thus making their tour all the more better.
“Haven't a clue, Darling Mummy,” Phylyp replied. “Who cares what that monster does anyway? Why we must keep him around here I shall never know.”
“Yokaa likes him.” I frowned. “I dare say Yokaa likes him better than his own son.”
“No accounting for taste.” Phylyp patted my hand. “You look divine today.” He kissed my cheek.
“You look divine too, dearest,” I replied.
“They found him,” Akan said. We were dining in my apartment and he had no desire to swallow even a bite. “They sent him to Rozari.”
I put down my fork and looked at my son. He did not need to tell me of whom he spoke.
“Your cousin's husband, the Lord Governor of the Child Moon is
dead,” my son continued, as if it were my fault. “He killed him. Murdered him in cold blood.” Akan swallowed hard and his emerald eyes glistened with angry tears. “Tore his heart out, like an animal would do.”
I threw down my napkin and rose.
“And now Father is alive again too. It's as if he has woken up from a dream and wants his desk and chair back. He tells me today I am not the king and I'm not likely to be, so I must quit pretending that I am. Can you believe this, Phyl?”
“Now Akie,” Phylyp said and stroked his hand. “A temporary setback is all. Perhaps the Karut will stay on Rozari?”
“We can only hope,” Akan cried as I went to my bed.
That night, the King came to me and wanted me.
“Go away,” I told him. “You are an old and ugly man.”
“Now Moira,” he said and pulled me against him. “I'm not that old. I'm happy today. I want to please you. Our grandson is alive, his destiny is intact.”
“He's not our grandson!” I screamed. “He is nothing to me. He is a vile creature, an abomination. Get out of my bed and out of my room.”
The king left and glared at me as he did so. “You should feel lucky that I allow you to keep your head,” he said before slamming the door.
The Karut had become respectable on Rozari. The Press loved this and took pictures of him there. They interviewed the Lightie who regaled them with tales of the Karut's success. The Karut was a doctor now, a surgeon and owned a company which built hospitals. He was wealthy and the people admired his beauty. They bought pinups of him as they did when he was young and the people spoke of him as if he were a great and handsome prince who would return to Rehnor and rescue Mishnah from our malaise.
Then, the Karut came back and spoke alone with my husband, the King, and the Karut King who came to our palace like a great foreign dignitary instead of our mortal enemy. They dressed the Karut in fancy uniforms. They adorned him with more gold, more diamonds, more firestones than Akan and I had, both put together. Even the King paled next to the Karut.