King's Folly

by Jill Williamson

  Wilek looked to her ear. The dried blood did seem thickest there. “Drice are from the east, right?” he asked.

  “Tenma, mostly,” Kal said.

  “Someone must have brought them here,” Uhley said. “But they don’t kill without being provoked.”

  “Perhaps whoever set them on her starved them first,” Trevn suggested.

  “They’re a tool of mantics,” Kal said. “Saw them used in the war.”

  Mantics.

  Lebetta devoured by drice? “They are still alive?” Wilek stared at her body, wondering if the beasts were gnawing at her viscera and might break through her skin at any moment.

  “Likely so,” Uhley said. “She should be burned at once or they’ll roam free . . . eventually.”

  Wilek turned away, horrified. He could not allow drice to roam the castle. But burning Lebetta would not allow her body to be preserved for the journey to Shamayim. He would have to petition Gâzar to receive her ashes and rebuild her body. He swallowed his grief. “See to it, then. I will inform her parents.”

  Uhley ordered a litter brought, and Lebetta’s body was moved to it by reluctant guards wearing gloves.

  Just as the men carried the litter away, Pontiff Rogedoth arrived in his night robes, scowling. “Why have you summoned me at this hour?”

  Wilek had wanted to go to the pyre house to be with Lebetta every moment until her body turned to ash, but the Pontiff must not be ignored.

  Barthel Rogedoth was a proud man with small features and tight skin over a bony skull. He wore his receding gray hair in a single fat plait that ran down his back to his knees. His priest’s lock was so long, it darkened to black in the middle of his back.

  Wilek explained about Lebetta and the rune.

  Rogedoth’s scowl deepened. “This is absurd. Who cares what happened to a concubine?”

  Wilek steeled himself. “I do. Can you translate the rune?”

  “Of course not,” Rogedoth spat. “You will need a mantic to tell you its meaning, and there are none in Armania. At least none who would help you.”

  Wilek breathed through his nose to calm himself. Rogedoth’s bluntness had always grated on his nerves. “Every man has a price.”

  “With the rosâr sacrificing illegal immigrants to Barthos, no price is high enough to come forward.”

  “A pardon is.”

  “For a concubine?” Rogedoth shook his head. “I am going home, Sâr Wilek. Do not summon me again.”

  “I will summon whomever I like, Pontiff,” Wilek snapped. “You are not above the throne.”

  “Perhaps not. But you do not sit on the throne.”

  The man strode away, forcing Wilek to bite back his anger. Now was not the time to take on Rogedoth.

  “Arrogant shrine-kisser,” Trevn mumbled.

  “This from the priest-in-training?” Wilek asked.

  Trevn shrugged. “Honesty is a virtue.”

  Wilek glanced down to the bloody writing on the marble slab. “There must be someone in the city who can read mantic runes.”

  “By the time you unearth them, you could have walked to Magonia and back ten times,” Harton said.

  Father would never permit Wilek to enter Magonia. “We must keep looking, Hart. I have to know what this rune means. Captain Alpress, if you need me, I’ll be at the deadhouse.”

  Lebetta’s parents were waiting at the deadhouse with Dendrick when Wilek, Kal, Harton, and Trevn arrived. Nikk Obert was a short, tidy man with more hair in his eyebrows than on his head. His wife stood a full head taller than him and was three times as wide. Wilek had only met them twice before. Should he embrace Senja? Shake Nikk’s hand? He simply stood there, stupidly, his boots and knees stained in their daughter’s blood.

  “I am so sorry,” he finally managed to say.

  “I am to blame, Your Highness,” Senja said, wringing her skirt in her hands. “If only she had heeded my warning.”

  “Have you discovered any new information?” Nikk asked Wilek.

  “Unfortunately no,” Wilek said. “Madame Obert, what warning did you give your daughter?”

  “Lebetta had been worshiping black spirits. I disapproved. Told her to stop. She accused me of being old-fashioned, said the spirits gave freedom and power.”

  Wilek’s thoughts spun. Worshiping black spirits was against the law in Armania. It angered the gods and priests both. Wilek could not imagine Lebetta getting involved with something so dark. “Where did she worship them? With whom?”

  “She never said. I assumed it was here at the palace with you.”

  “I have never worshiped black spirits.” The very idea was insulting. “Harton!” He waved his backman over. When Harton reached him, Wilek took the wax tablet and showed it to the Oberts. “Do you recognize this? Lady Lebetta drew it.”

  “Where would she learn to draw runes?” her father asked.

  “From the black spirits.” Senja’s voice cracked. She made the sign of The Hand. “Gods forgive her, but only black spirits know the runes.”

  “And the mantics who worship them,” Harton added.

  Senja moaned, eyes filled with tears.

  “Thank you, Harton.” Wilek shoved the wax tablet into Harton’s hands and shooed him back to Kal.

  “Please, Your Highness.” Nikk took his wife’s hand. “Find out who did this to our daughter.”

  “I shall,” Wilek said. “You can count on it.”

  An awkward moment of silence fell over them.

  “Lebetta left few of her valuables in our home,” Senja said. “Might I have permission to search her chambers for anything I could add to her grave offering?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll add to it as well. She won’t go into the next world empty-handed.”

  “We will send her by sea,” Senja said. “Start the procession at our home and wind our way outside the city limits to the quay. We must give her every chance to reach Shamayim.”

  It was the best they could do. Had she been his wife, Wilek would have chosen the same, though then the procession would have begun at the castle.

  “It might not matter,” Nikk said. “If she’d been worshiping black spirits, no amount of wealth or distance travelled will appease Athos when she stands before his bench.”

  This comment set Senja wailing again. Worshiping black spirits. How could that be Wilek’s Lebetta? What had she been involved in and why?

  Less than an hour later, Zithel Lau, a medial priest, performed a last rites ceremony with as many votive offerings as Wilek and Senja had time to gather.

  The night bells tolled just as Uhley lit Lebetta’s pyre. Kal stood on Wilek’s right, Trevn on his left. Harton and Dendrick were around somewhere. But as Wilek stared into the flames that consumed her, he felt ultimately alone. Senja’s keening nearly undid him.

  Watching Lebetta’s body burn, something in him died. She had taken part of his heart with her to the Lowerworld.

  He would never forget her.

  Her ashes were swept into an urn that would be sent out to sea in a shipping ceremony. This way Lebetta could sail to Shamayim and have her body restored in the afterlife.

  Uhley handed the urn to Wilek, who instantly passed it to Lebetta’s parents. He promised to visit them when he had answers and stumbled back to the castle. Dendrick and Kal followed silently, allowing him his grief.

  A short while later, he fell into his bed. His cold bed. Lebetta would never come to him again. He would never hold her in his arms. Never kiss her soft lips or hear her throaty laugh. There was no life without her. No joy. There was only an unimaginable hollowness that made him ache all over.

  Images from the night haunted him. Her pale, lifeless body. His boots standing in a puddle of blood. The flames of the pyre destroying her beauty forever.

  Tears blinded him even from the darkness of his chambers. His chest and throat burned from the magnitude of his despair and the added remorse that he had banished her.

  He should not have done it.

&nbs
p; He should not have.

  Charlon

  The low moan of a horn woke Charlon. She sat up. “What is that?”

  “One has blown the lure,” Roya, the Third Maiden, said. “The Chieftess is calling.”

  Charlon threw off her furs. Scrambled to her feet. Stepped over the wriggling form of Eedee, who was slowly waking.

  She dashed out of the tent into the cool night. Clouds hid the moon and the hour. Tents around her rustled. Those within rose to the lure’s call.

  Since Charlon had first met Mreegan, they had traveled all of Magonia. This was Altar Five. In the shadow of Mount Magon. Something important would happen here.

  Tonight.

  The cold place within told her so.

  Charlon had been learning. From the other maidens. From Mreegan. And from the goddess Magon. Mreegan had once started as a Fifth Maiden too. Someday Charlon would succeed her. Become Chieftess. She was growing stronger each day.

  The magic came easily now. Charlon had entered a world of wonder. Learned to be a mantic. Faster than any other in decades, Mreegan told her. A lie. Magon confirmed that it had been faster than any mantic ever, including Mreegan herself.

  Charlon’s skill surpassed even the Chieftess.

  Someday she would rule.

  Tonight, however, Charlon must remain the humble Fifth Maiden.

  Her run slowed as she reached the hill and started up. Light flickered inside the red tent. As she neared, voices could be heard.

  Along with the Five Maidens and several dozen acolytes, the Chieftess kept her Five Men, titled One through Five. One and Two stood guard outside the red tent, shard clubs in hand. Charlon stopped before Rone, the strapping man who was also called One. He had danced with Charlon during her induction ceremony. It was custom, the first should welcome the last. She had let him touch her hands. It had not been easy, despite his beauty.

  He had never spoken to her. The maidens said he was seventy years old. That Mreegan kept him young because he was her favorite. He wore nothing but a kasah around his waist and the lure around his neck, which was made from a massive cheyvah horn. Cheyvah, a real beast, Charlon had learned. Not a myth.

  “I heard my Chieftess call,” Charlon said. “Has she need of me?”

  Rone jerked his head at Two, also known as Nuel, the man on the other side of the door. Two pulled the tent flap aside and went in.

  Charlon’s heart thudded at the mystery of what was to come. She glanced at the lure, caught herself staring at Rone’s muscular chest, and looked away.

  Nuel returned and nodded to Charlon. “Remain silent and watch.”

  Charlon pulled aside the deerskin flap and entered. Chieftess Mreegan lay facedown, naked, in the center of her tent. Two men knelt on either side, drawing on her back. Four—also called Morten—used a mixture of ahvenrood and kohl. Five—Torol—used ahvenrood and blood. Kateen and Astaa, the First and Second Maidens, stood at Mreegan’s head, overseeing. Kateen held Mreegan’s newt on her shoulder. The creature looked down on his mistress, his tongue flicking in and out.

  Torol glanced up at Charlon, smiled, then continued his work. He was also beautiful—all the men were. Torol had short hair that grew in coils, full lips, and light brown eyes.

  The image on the Chieftess’s back took shape. They had drawn a square with four lines coming out from the top and one from the side. “The Hand mythos?”

  Everyone glared at Charlon. Torol passed a bloodied finger across his lips, a hint to be silent, then went back to work. Lines were drawn on the bottom of the hand as well.

  Charlon recognized it now. Inhaled a sharp breath. It was the symbol the Five Men wore. Tattooed on the backs of their necks. A box with ten lines coming off it, like a square sun.

  The men set aside their bowls. The women helped the Chieftess stand. Mreegan turned slowly to face Charlon as her men set about dressing her. They draped her body in furs and skins, added a huge white fur cape, and placed circlets of brass and turquoise on her head. Torol picked up a comb and began brushing her hair.

  “The Kabar hands are sacred,” the Chieftess told her. She reached out and took hold of Charlon’s hand, drew it forward, and held it palm up between them. She set her own hand on top, palms together. “Stretch out your thumb.”

  Charlon obeyed, and Mreegan wrapped her thumb around the side of Charlon’s hand. Charlon did the same.

  “The earth is our home, but ahvenrood gives us power over it,” Mreegan said. “Humans, animals, demons, and beasts—all bow before those who wield the ahvenrood, who join hands with shadir, who become like gods.” Mreegan pulled Charlon’s hand against her. “Hasten to the altar, daughter. The time draws near.”

  Charlon bowed and backed out of the tent. The flap fell shut, and she turned, ran. Down the hill. Back to her tent. She now understood. The image on the Magonian flag. On the men’s necks. The Kabaran hands. The symbol of mantics.

  Inside, Roya and Eedee stood before two large bowls. One filled with kohl paste. The other with red ochre. They painted hair and faces. Covered their bodies in hand-printed versions of the Kabaran symbol.

  “Mark yourself as much as you can,” Roya told Charlon. “I’ll help you with the other side.”

  Because the Chieftess had shown her, Charlon understood. She slid up to the bowl. One hand in red, the other in black. She pressed a black print over the soft flesh of her thigh. She glanced at the others, noting where they put their prints, and copied them. Arms, legs, thighs . . . scrubbed red ochre into her hair.

  But she could not make the reverse side of the Kabaran hands on her own.

  When she was done, Roya came to Charlon and reached out.

  Charlon stepped back. “Don’t.”

  Roya met her gaze. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Charlon knew but did not like it. Not when people touched her. She gritted her teeth. Nodded.

  Roya set to work. She quickly turned Charlon’s single prints into Kabaran hands. The powdery pastes dried quickly. Kateen and Astaa returned and painted their bodies as well. When all were ready, the Five Maidens each took a sip of ahvenrood juice and ran to the altar at the end of camp. The area was packed with acolytes who were dancing to the beat of tribal drums. Only Chieftess Mreegan and her men were missing.

  The Five Maidens climbed onto the flat stone altar, and as Charlon’s eyes opened up to the Veil, she began to dance. Charlon loved how dancing made her feel. No man could touch her. She was free. She was safe. And with Magon as her shadir, she was powerful.

  The lure blew again. The dancing stopped. All heads turned. Looked up the path. Here came the Five Men. Bringing the Chieftess. Rone walked in front. Two through Five carried the throne on poles that ran under the chair. Mreegan sat regal, splendid, her newt on one shoulder with its tail curled around her neck. The men wore skirts of grass and bone. Bare chests marked with bloody prints of Kabaran hands. And in the Veil, the shadir swirled around them, colors murky and dark.

  The maidens fell to their knees, rubbed dirt on their faces to show their reverence. Charlon copied them, as did the acolytes on the ground.

  From her throne, Mreegan lifted one hand. “Stop.”

  The men stopped walking.

  “Show me your faces.”

  Movement rippled through the crowd as each man, woman, and child lifted their dirt-covered faces and fixed their gaze on their Chieftess.

  Mreegan extended her arm and snapped her fingers. Rone turned to face the throne and issued a soft command. Five men from the crowd moved quickly, bending their bodies into three steps before Mreegan’s throne. Two bent at the waist and locked their arms around each other’s torsos. Two more fell to their hands and knees, curling their heads between their arms. The last threw himself prostrate on the ground.

  Mreegan slid off the throne, carefully placing her feet on the first two backs. She stood and lifted her chin, waited until she was certain everyone was watching, then stepped to the next row of men, to the last, and finally to the ground. She approac
hed the altar and climbed into the middle of the circle of kneeling maidens.

  She spun around, whipping her white fur cloak out behind her, and yelled, “Behold, I say to you, that in those days the root of Arman will be destroyed and usher in the end of all things. There will be mourning and great weeping heard throughout the land. Brother will turn against brother, and their swords will dash each other to pieces. And Armania, the glory of realms, the beauty of the goddess’s eye, will no longer be the head of all things.”

  She paused. Charlon could hear only her own breath. The crowd was silent, as if the Chieftess’s words had frozen time. There was more to the prophecy. The people awaited it.

  “I will bring peace between Mother and Father,” Mreegan yelled, “and the two will be reconciled. From the line of Arman and Magon will come a Deliverer who will be ruler over all. He will crush the foreheads of our enemies, the skulls of all who come against us.”

  The crowd cheered. Several cried out, “Deliverer!”

  “Our Deliverer will not be conceived until Mother and Father are reconciled,” Mreegan said. “The signs are upon us. The Father will come soon, and our Deliverer will swell within the Mother’s womb.”

  More cheering.

  A white cloud drifted up to Charlon’s chin. She heard Magon’s voice within. Ready yourself, Mother. Your time has come.

  Mreegan held up her hand to silence the crowd. “Magon has chosen who will birth the Deliverer. Prophecy states the least will overpower the greatest, and so will she, as the least, become the greatest. Arise, Fifth Maiden!”

  The crowd gasped. Charlon’s breath caught. The Chieftess had chosen her. Just as Magon had said. She stood and walked to the front of the circle, faced Mreegan. Both were clouded in white from the shadir in the Veil. Was Magon still here?

  “Enter the circle and kneel before me,” the Chieftess said.

  Charlon stepped between Kateen and Astaa, knelt on cold stone she could not see beneath the white fog.

  “You have pledged yourself to me, have you not?”

  “I have, Chieftess.” But only in service to Magon.

  “Do you accept this calling to birth the Deliverer?”