by Kate Elliott
He steps under the awning. The wet towel is plastered to his form in a way that interests me more than the beautiful garden scenery, that reminds me of the sweetness we have shared, the trust that binds our hearts. But a squad of attendants swarms out of the garden like a disturbance of cockroaches to dress and settle him in a waiting sedan chair and carry him off through the garden into the king’s chambers, where I am not invited to follow.
My giddiness vanishes, burned away by the thought of so many invisible knives.
Doma Larissa picks up the tray and escorts me back the way we came.
“So I was always meant to bathe in the other courtyard?” I ask, desperate to figure out how to negotiate this endless succession of traps.
She nods. Two guardsmen have arrived to stand duty at the gate between the compounds; they let us through without a word. Now that I get a better look at the original private courtyard, I see there is a separate area for washing before you get in the pool, with a stone bench, a drain, and a cloth screen if you wish for privacy.
Doma Larissa hums a pretty melody as she pours jasmine-scented water over my grimy skin, soaking me repeatedly as I sigh with pleasure. Her fingers gently tease apart my matted hair. The cut barely hurts as she uses a small brush to gently clean away dried blood, then washes my entire body with a brisk energy I haven’t felt since I was a little child and Mother would scrub us down.
She dresses me in silk undergarments, a finely woven sheath dress, and a calf-length jacket of pale yellow. However costly the fabric, this is the garb of a servant, not of a highborn doma or noble-born lady. I want to refuse the clothing but I don’t have anything else clean to wear.
This whole place reeks of rottenness. I don’t want to leave Kal and Father, and I don’t want to stay here to face off with the likes of Volua and Galaia every day. I’ve walked myself into a blind trap where I can’t go forward while the path behind me has closed off.
When I offer to help her carry the basin holding my dirty garments, she refuses with a gesture and hauls it herself to the portico. I wait in the sun. A soft click brings my head around. One of the tile-encrusted cornucopias shifts, develops a seam, and starts to open.
It’s a secret gate.
I dash for Larissa. Her back is to me, so I yank on her sleeve. When she turns, I point, then pull us behind a pillar.
An armed man dressed in the tabard of the queen’s guard steps through and surveys the pool and courtyard as would a scout. He speaks to someone behind him, and six men carry a curtained litter in through the narrow gate and set it down. A harried-looking attendant holds aside the heavy curtain and assists the woman sitting hidden within to climb out. She has come in such furtive haste that she appears more like a clandestine lover than a proud highborn woman. She isn’t wearing the queen’s diadem, but what gives her away is her striking resemblance to statues of her mother, Serenissima the Fourth, with her round face and slightly bulging eyes.
Her expression seems gentle, even timid, but I know Queen Serenissima the Fifth for what she really is: a conspirator and murderer who colluded in the death of her brother Kliatemnos and her only child, Temnos, so she could hold on to power.
Now she has come for Kal.
11
I desperately want to be the one to warn Kal but Larissa won’t be able to make Father understand the urgency.
“Go warn the king,” I whisper.
Her path to the gate into the king’s garden is shielded by a hedge so she can scurry away while I’m still trapped. If I try to go to the doors that lead into Father’s suite, they’ll see me. But cowering behind a pillar is not the only way to hide. I’m dressed in servants’ garb, and even though Efeans never work in the palace, I only need the queen and her attendants to hesitate for an instant.
I grab the basin and, bracing it against my hip, stride along the portico to Father’s suite just as if I were an ordinary servant about her ordinary tasks. I make it to the doors before I hear a concerned exclamation followed by a demand to hush.
Steward Haredas has just set a tray of food and drink down on the desk in front of Father. “Personally sampled by the head cook so it is safe,” he remarks with a dry smile, a legacy of years of trust built up between the two men.
“Father! The queen just entered the courtyard through a secret door—”
He’s on his feet and moving so fast that I barely have time to set down the basin and hurry after him onto the portico. Serenissima is already speaking in a rush as a new group of figures enter the sunlit courtyard from the king’s garden.
“Nikonos! I was so frightened for you! Thank goodness you have returned in triumph.”
The light of triumph dies in her face as she takes in Kal with his coterie of officers and crowd of exalted officials. He wears an ankle-length keldi of soft purple and a sleeveless vest. Of course he looks the very image of a handsome prince in a play. Maybe it would be more truthful to say that actors playing handsome princes strive to look like him.
The new king speaks no word. He waits. Not one of the senior palace officials who surround him moves toward the queen or makes any effort to acknowledge her. The silence settles, grows heavy, and becomes oppressive.
At last, slowly, as if she can barely find the energy to act, she presses a hand to her chest. “Kalliarkos. You have surprised me.”
“Yes, I must suppose I have.”
Her gaze darts around the courtyard now filled with men. It pauses on Junior Palace Steward Sarnon, who gives the slightest shake of his head. Father whispers in an adjutant’s ear and I’m absolutely sure Sarnon will be expelled from service in the king’s palace before the day is over.
Oblivious to this byplay, Serenissima takes several tottering steps forward. Officers shift inward, ready to fling themselves in front of Kal, but she drops to her knees in supplication.
“Oh, thank the gods, my dearest cousin Kalliarkos. I prayed and prayed to be rescued from my brother’s brutal attentions—”
“Which brother?” he interposes. A twitch has started up at the corner of his right eye.
“Why, Nikonos, of course! Everyone knew he was a brute. He murdered my darling son… my gentle Temnos.…” She sobs gustily.
My hands close into fists.
The queen heaves a tremulous sigh. “That innocent boy, fresh as the morning dew, ripped from my loving arms and killed before my wounded, weeping heart.”
“Isn’t that a line from a play?” Kal remarks lightly, and because he is correct, the most nervous of the officials laugh.
An expression of such contempt ripples across her face that I recoil. “How dare you mock my grief? What was I supposed to do when Nikonos arrived so unexpectedly in the city accompanied by foreign troops? The instant Kliatemnos and our son lay dead in their own blood at my feet, Nikonos made sure to strip away all my allies. Then he told me I had to agree to bear his child. What would you have had me do, Kalliarkos?” Her sobs are thick with thwarted rage.
“What would you have me do now, Cousin?”
An attendant glides forward to dry her hands and pat her cheeks dry. With fresh confidence, she straightens.
“Marry me. We shall reign as king and queen together.”
His expression goes blank.
I’m choked with disgust, which is a good thing, because otherwise I would scream.
“You have chafed for years in Garon Palace under the rule of your grandmother and Lord Gargaron.” Her voice gains strength. She’s sure of her ground. “Why would you wish to rule as king knowing your grandmother favors your sister while meanwhile your uncle pulls your strings and treats you as his puppet? I would not treat you so.”
“An interesting offer. And should we marry, how would you treat me?”
“As an equal.”
“What of my sister, Menoë?”
“Menoë! That naïve girl? She fancies herself a courageous lioness, but she is nothing more than a squealing pig.”
Father stiffens at this mocking disrespec
t for his new wife, and I feel his reaction as an insult to Mother even though a tiny part of me is also angry on Menoë’s behalf, knowing what she suffered at Nikonos’s hands.
Kalliarkos laughs so sharply it hurts because he looks as contemptuous as Nikonos ever did, and contempt sits horribly on his usually open and good-natured face.
“What of the East Saroese soldiers who occupy the city, Cousin?” he asks.
“I am not a fool, although everyone treats me as one. I have cunningly misled their general by requesting he barrack his troops in the Grain Market so they do not inflame an anxious population. All the off-duty soldiers can be sealed inside the warehouses and burned to death with a single command.”
I must flinch, because Father nudges me, and it is only then I realize he hasn’t left my side although by rights he should be standing next to the king.
“‘Burned to death with a single command’!” Kal’s tone is flat. “Ah. Well. Wise thinking on your part, Cousin.”
“Of course it is! Efea’s rich harbors and envied trade are due to my administration, not the king’s! These rude foreign men treat me as if I am a decorative flower rather than a queen just because they keep their women ignorant and stupid.”
Kal paces toward her. Just as I think she means to grasp his feet and beg for mercy, she draws herself up instead. For all that I hate her for what she did to her innocent son, I admire her for meeting her fate with dignity.
Kal extends a hand. “You have convinced me, Serenissima. I do not wish to live under my uncle’s heel. We shall proceed now to the temple.”
“We cannot marry today. I am not even dressed for a public appearance. I came here in haste only because of the unexpected nature of your arrival, because I thought you were…”
Because I thought you were Nikonos.
“…I thought you were in need of advice appropriate to the king. My people can tend to all your needs, Kalliarkos. As can I.”
Father’s hand clamps down on my forearm before I realize I’ve taken a step forward, meaning to slap her. Kal has enough discipline not to look toward me even though half his officials do. I have never heard anything so grotesque and disgusting. I’m shaking with anger.
The twitch appears again beside Kal’s right eye. “Speed is of the essence, my dear cousin. An enemy army advances on Saryenia even as we speak. Our situation must be settled before they arrive.”
He gestures a command. His adherents outnumber hers so her attendants must acquiesce. They help her back into the litter. With soldiers a fence on every side, she is carried in procession through the garden and into the forecourt where the carriages await. Kalliarkos does not get into the king’s carriage. Instead he grabs a soldier’s tabard and, pulling it on to hide his royal garb, takes a place amid the guard surrounding the queen’s litter. He must mean to walk all the way down to the temple so as not to be a target. He can’t win if he’s struck down by a lucky shot by an East Saroese soldier or one of Nikonos’s last loyal men.
Wearing this humble raiment, he crosses to us.
“Jessamy must not accompany us,” he says, and to my surprise, Father defies him.
“Your Gracious Majesty, my daughter is not leaving my side. I am sure you understand why I cannot allow her to remain unguarded in the palace.”
My once sweet, cheerful Kal looks held together by a thread of calm so frayed it is close to unraveling. A new hardness lurks behind his eyes. “No, you are correct, General. Keep her close to you.”
“You’re not really going to marry her?” I say in an outraged whisper.
But Kal has already turned his back on me and walks away. Father steers me to the general’s carriage, now hitched to fresh horses. Once we are inside, he shifts like a man who will never again find a comfortable seat.
“Father! He’s not really going to—”
“Of course not. But everyone has now seen the overly familiar way in which you address him. So listen carefully, Jessamy. The risks and pleasures you two took as adversaries, even as captain and Challenger, were reckless and improper—”
“We didn’t know he was going to become king!”
“That is immaterial. It looks as if you and I have colluded with Garon Palace in every respect. The risk of you being poisoned or knifed by courtiers envious of our new position is now exceedingly high. Do you understand me? Do you?”
Father has imagined my death and what it would mean to him. How I hate this. And of course I now recall that Mother warned me about the exact same thing, that being with Kal would mark me for death at the hands of Kal’s own household.
We leave the palace and descend the Avenue of Triumphs in a mockery of a procession.
More people have come out to line the street, but their calm is a thin shell over a seething underbelly of anger at the sight of their hated queen. Muttering sweeps through the crowd like fire through dry grass, only to die away. Like embers, the people only need stirring, and a bit of fuel, to explode into new flame. I push aside the traveling curtains to try to catch a glimpse of Kal, to make sure he is safe, but I can’t spot him among the soldiers.
Father pulls me back inside just as I hear someone shout, “There’s the mule our new master rides!”
No matter how I gasp, I can’t get enough air.
“Jessamy.” Father grasps my chin and turns my face so I have to look at him. I am so humiliated I pull away, and he immediately releases me.
“This is what you warned us against, isn’t it? That your daughters had to behave as proper Patron girls and never be spoken of in a way that would insult you.”
“I was strict because it was the only way I could protect you and your sisters. I don’t care about insults directed at me. It is what you and they might have to endure that concerns me.”
I wipe tears from my face with the back of a hand.
“You’re a brave girl, Jessamy. I’m proud of you even when I disapprove of some of your actions. You’re not unlike me when I was your age.” A pensive smile softens his face, and it calls an answering smile from me because his approval is my sun.
“Father, I don’t know what to do.”
“As with all battles, one must be careful not to strike too soon. The king must first win the support of the population. Once we drive the East Saroese out of Efea, the courtiers will fall in line. If Kalliarkos proves a strong and competent king, then he may take his pleasures where he wishes. Citizens who cheered on an adversary named Spider will make a story of the king and the Challenger, if they see it as a success, as a tale that ends well.”
“That’s not what I meant. None of this seems right to me. The palace. Kal becoming king. I was so sure it was right for Efea.”
“It has happened very quickly, hasn’t it? Perhaps you will be safer if I take you to your mother for now.”
Fear and hope crowd my thoughts until they skitter every which way. “Do you know where Mother is? Has she communicated with you?”
“Polodos keeps me informed.”
“Polodos! Does Maraya know?”
“I do not inquire.”
“What if Mother refuses to see you?”
His gaze rifles through memories I don’t share, through regrets I can’t begin to fathom.
In silence we proceed through the Square of the Moon and the Sun, and I finally realize we are going to the City of the Dead. I honestly can’t figure out what Kal intends to do and I’m starting to get nervous.
Eternity Temple, dedicated to Lord Judge Inkos, runs along one side of the square. All other Saroese temples, even the other Inkos temples, open into spacious sanctuaries where images of the gods are placed on pedestals and adorned with flowers and ribbons, but not this one. It is a high and windowless wall—a fortress, really—that separates the living city of Saryenia from the City of the Dead, where oracles are entombed alive.
All movement in and out is controlled by the temple wardens at a single entrance called Eternity Gate, a long, dim passage through the thick wall. The priest-war
dens claim they safeguard the sanctity of the holy oracles and the hallowed dead but I know what else Eternity Gate guards: the ruins of an old Efean complex buried beneath Saroese dead.
I have walked the dark length of Eternity Gate to take offerings to oracles. I crossed under Eternity Gate while in the funeral procession for Lord Ottonor, the man Gargaron murdered to take control of my father’s military prowess. With the help of the great General Esladas, Gargaron launched a personal campaign to put his nephew and niece on the throne.
And now half of that plan is complete.
But this time our procession does not move all the way along the passage and into the City of the Dead. Instead it turns aside halfway, still within the wide temple wall. We cross through an interior gate that normally opens only for the holy priests who serve Lord Judge Inkos. Beyond the gate lies an elongated courtyard where they keep their offices and sleep apart from the world of the living.
“Jessamy,” Father murmurs. “According to law, no Commoner may enter this sanctuary. If the priests see you, you’ll be convicted of blasphemy and put to death. And I would be executed too, for allowing you in. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The moment we come to a stop, Father steps down from the carriage, positioning his body to block the door. I peek carefully through the curtain.
The courtyard is no wider than the Royal Road, a garden running between high walls like a canyon. A center lane of greenery eases the eye: harsh red poppies, cheerful daisies, and cornflowers like scraps of sky brightening the dreary confines of earth.
At our unexpected entrance priests scurry out of rooms and the High Priest appears. He is an older man, pale from lack of sun, lips cocked down in haughty disapproval. Is this the man whom Gargaron bribed to allow my pregnant Efean mother and half-Efean sisters to be buried with an oracle in Ottonor’s tomb? To admit Efeans into an Inkos sanctuary is blasphemy, but to entomb a pregnant woman is an even worse crime against the gods because she might give birth to a boy, and boys are valuable.
The High Priest’s confidence falters as he approaches an unbending Kalliarkos. The two men stare each other down in a battle over precedence.