The Children of Wrath

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Finally, Tae opened the door to a middle-aged Béarnide wearing servant’s livery and an apron. Liberally flecked with gray, her coarse black locks flowed to her shoulders, lacking the bronze bear threaded onto a thong that should be a part of her uniform. She curtsied at the sight of him.

  Tae barely resisted the urge to turn to see who she honored in this manner. “Good morning,” he sang out, happy times with his son making him giddy.

  “Good morning, Sire,” the woman said. “Her Majesty has requested your presence at the court this morning.”

  The court? Terror displaced joy momentarily. Unable to fully escape his past, Tae still feared summoning to a king’s hall of justice, even when he knew he had done nothing wrong. His mind raised and discarded a number of possibilities, all bad, before he considered that Matrinka simply wanted him to witness an interesting case. Weile Kahn had sent Tae here to observe the details of rulership, especially the techniques that made the high Western kingdom so celebrated and successful. Dutifully, he had attended several sessions of the court, the tax negotiations, treaty refinements, and petty squabbles that defined a king’s life so dreadfully boring he had pitied Griff and any ruler who chose to pattern his court the same. Occasionally, more significant or interesting matters confronted King Griff. Tae found himself at a loss to handle these, though the king’s simple justice made the answers so clear moments later that Tae could not help believing he would have found the same ones in short time.

  When Tae stood several moments without speaking, the servant shifted nervously. The apron suggested that she did not deliver messages often, her proper place in the kitchen.

  Subikahn wailed, suddenly aware of his empty belly.

  Relieved to find a new topic of conversation, the servant spoke again. “Oh, how sweet. May I hold him?”

  Tae nodded, but the servant flounced past him before she could possibly have seen his answer. She gathered Subikahn into her arms, gently removing the sword from his hand and setting it on the bed. “Goodness, child. You shouldn’t have that,” she addressed the baby, though Tae guessed the admonishment was aimed at him. “You could hurt yourself . . . or someone else.” She continued, her voice dropping into incomprehensible cooing lost beneath the baby’s screams. She rocked Subikahn, the movement helping little. Finally, she looked at Tae. “I think he’s hungry, Sire.”

  “You can be certain of it,” Tae responded, combing his hair with his fingers, barely rearranging the tangles.

  “May I feed him?”

  Tae snatched up the little practice sword, too light and dull to damage anything. “He’s just started on ground-up foods. And he’ll need his mother’s milk.” He handed over the weapon. “And speaking of ground-up foods, you’d better make certain he’s got this, or his Renshai mother may dice both of us.” He passed over the sword.

  “Oh,” she said carefully. Then her eyes widened as she finally put together the details of who the child must be. “Oh! Yes, of course, Sire.” She tucked the practice sword under her arm while Subikahn continued to shriek in her arms. “I’ll see him to Lady Kevral.” She made a gesture at the hallway. “You should get going as well, Sire.”

  Tae swept his arm to indicate the servant should precede him, which she did. He watched her waddle toward the kitchen for a moment before he turned in the opposite direction. He crept through the familiar corridors and trotted down stairways, suffused with the lingering warmth of a night and a morning with Subikahn. Gradually, adult concerns replaced his memories. His demeanor changed to the wary stiffness that came as much from concern as formality. His walk brought him to the king’s court, on the lowest level of the west wing. There, a pair of guardsmen clutching polearms stepped aside to let him enter, without passing a word to him or between them.

  Tae opened the rightmost of the double doors. Warm dampness flowed from the interior, mingling the scents of spices and cleaners with nervous perspiration. Rows of chairs flanked a carpet of woven gold wool, nearly all of them empty. The carpetway led to the dais where King Griff sat, surrounded by his inner court guards. Darris perched on a chair at his right hand, and the guard’s captain, Seiryn, at his left. In front of him, the head gardener spoke too softly for Tae to hear, sharp hand gestures that had become his trademark punctuating the conversation at irregular intervals. The guards jerked every time one of those movements flew in the king’s direction, though at least a length separated them.

  The handful of spectators included Griff’s parents and also Matrinka, who sat on the side the scattered nobles had chosen. Servants occupied chairs to the right of the carpetway, most kitchen staff. Cued by the aproned woman’s loose hair, he noticed that the evening chef did not wear the silver badge Griff had awarded him for excellence, and another of the serving girls had replaced the bronze bear thong with a plain piece of string.

  It felt odd to Tae that shifting into the leftward chairs seemed more natural now than the right, though surely he looked out-of-place. The simple tunic and breeks he had chosen for swift comfort rather than appearance jarred, especially the hole in his right knee. He glided into the seat beside Matrinka. “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  Matrinka kept her eyes on the proceedings as Mior rose and stepped from her lap to Tae’s, purring. “Discussing the designs for the spring flower beds.” She glanced at Tae suddenly, probably cued by the calico, and frowned with clear disapproval. “Tae, I had the maid bring a comb to your room yesterday.”

  “A comb?” Tae furrowed his brow, pretending to consider deeply. “Oh,” he said as if with great wisdom. “I’ve been using it to strain tea.”

  “Very funny,” the queen hissed at her guest. Mior batted at the strings of fabric still barely connecting the sides of his britches’ knee. “And what are you doing crawling around?”

  “Seems fairer than expecting Subikahn to walk.”

  Matrinka grunted. The hole had surely gotten worn long before the baby became mobile.

  Tae returned to the point. “I’m not worried about the gardens. I meant why did you call me here?” Seeing the opportunity, he returned to the admonishments. “With a little more warning, I could have dressed properly.” He ran his hands over Mior from neck to tail, forcing the cat to rise and press against his hands in ecstasy. Multicolored hairs flew, clinging to Matrinka’s velvet dress.

  Matrinka plucked fur from her bodice, her lap already hopelessly speckled. “You’re a prince, remember? You should dress properly all the time.”

  “So I’m supposed to restrain tornadoes and hurricanes in my temple best?” Tae removed his hand from the cat to gesture at his exposed knee, and Mior toppled to his lap. “All my clothes would look like this. The ones not already stained with baby drool.”

  “I’m not wholly unfamiliar with baby drool,” Matrinka reminded, smoothing her dress over hips only just returning to their normal contour. As the head gardener bowed and passed back up the golden carpet, Matrinka inclined her head toward the double doors. “I thought you should hear what’s coming next.”

  Tae nodded. As realization struck, he frozen in mid-movement. “This has something to do with Rascal, doesn’t it?”

  Matrinka made a noncommittal gesture that all but confirmed his concern.

  The door opened to release the gardener, and the supervisor of the kitchen staff, Walfron, took his place. Enormously wide, even for a Béarnide, Walfron’s every step thundered through the courtroom. He walked with the wide-based gait forced by the size of his thighs and approached a king who stood taller but whom he significantly outweighed. Only Tae’s previous discoveries allowed him to notice three brass studs missing from near the cuffs of Walfron’s britches. The doors banged shut as the supervisor marched halfway down the carpetway. He finished his trek in silence, stopping in front of the dais and bowing as low as his gut allowed.

  “Rise, Walfron,” Griff said. “And state your complaint.”

  Walfron straightened, joints creaking. “It’s about the Pudarian girl, Your Majesty. The o
ne who calls herself Rascal.”

  Tae groaned.

  Matrinka silenced him with a look emphasized by a casual tightening of Mior’s claws through the fabric of his britches.

  “What’s the problem, Walfron?” Griff coaxed.

  “She’s stealing food, Your Majesty.”

  Tae’s cheeks warmed, and the urge to confront Rascal became nearly impossible to suppress.

  “Food.” Griff blinked several times, brow creasing. “You are to be supplying her as much as she chooses to eat.”

  Walfron fidgeted, flesh jiggling and hands wringing as the king’s judgment turned on him. “Well, yes, Sire. And we do, Sire. I mean, we invite her to all the meals. She doesn’t come, Sire. Then she steals it.”

  Tae’s fingers winched into fists. When I get my hands on her, she’ll wish I was Kevral.

  Griff studied the kitchen supervisor several moments in silence, then spoke in a gentle tone. “Walfron, she’s a child of the streets. Crowds and nobles surely make her uncomfortable. It’s not surprising she would choose to avoid the regular meals.”

  “B—but, Sire,” Walfron stammered, occasionally glancing back the way he had come. “We’ve offered to feed her alone. She’s stealing the food, Your Majesty.”

  “It’s all right,” the king soothed. “She’s used to taking her food that way. It doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  Wrong! Mior’s claws gouging deeper into his leg warned Tae that he had started to rise. So long as people keep justifying her bad behavior, it’ll only worsen. And that’ll hurt everyone. For the first time in Tae’s experience, Griff had made a clearly poor decision. He realized something else, the source of the missing hair ties, studs, and badge. Clearly, the staff had not yet pieced that bit of information to the rest, or Walfron would have mentioned it.

  “From the kitchen, Your Majesty,” Walfron said incredulously. “She’s stealing from the kitchen.”

  “Walfron,” Griff said.

  The supervisor acknowledged the king with another bow.

  Griff continued softly, “That’s where the food is.”

  “Yes, Sire.” Walfron mumbled, now looking openly toward the exit.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, Sire.”

  “Dismissed, then.”

  Walfron breathed a “Thank you, Sire,” though speaking it aloud might have appeared disrespectful. He hurried back up the carpetway as fast as his thick legs could carry him without breaking into a run.

  King Griff’s gaze alighted on Tae, lingering there several moments before turning to the silk-swathed merchant advancing confidently down the aisle. Tae had never wished so fervently for the elves’ ability at khohlar. Suppressed rage had him quaking.

  Matrinka took Tae’s arm. “You will handle this problem, won’t you?”

  Tae gritted his teeth, forcing a calm reply. “I—” he started, thoughts racing. “Damn it, Matrinka.” He managed to convey strength in a whisper. “I’m not her father. Despite the rumors, I didn’t start siring children at six, which is the oldest I could have been for her.”

  “Think of yourself as her brother,” Matrinka gave back.

  “I’d rather think of myself as the one who beat some sense into her.”

  Matrinka glared. “Tae, stop thinking like a Renshai. You know violence doesn’t solve anything.”

  Centuries of history would prove you wrong. Tae dropped the argument. It would only dilute his point. “Matrinka, a miserable childhood doesn’t entitle a person to a happy adulthood, especially at the expense of others. It’s people dismissing her petty crimes that will eventually drive her to murder and mayhem. Now, the high king lets her off because she’s a poor, orphaned, child. Soon, it’ll be because she’s a penniless mother with sick babies to feed—who, by the way, will be lucky to take third place to her own selfish cravings. Whether they survive their own battered childhoods will depend on how well they serve: first as objects of upper-class pity, then as thieves for their mother.” Tae’s argument succumbed to the logic of the sterility plague, but only in detail. His point was still valid. “Assuming our mission is successful, tossing out miserable brats in her own image could support her through her old age. Eventually, the bitter, frail old woman can say and do as she pleases.”

  Matrinka winced at the image. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I’ve seen it a dozen times.” Tae fought the images of ragged, dirty children used, as their parents had been, more familiar with thrashings than love. He recalled his father’s stories of the men and women who joined his underground. “Heard about it a hundred more.”

  “Then, Tae, you’ll have to handle the problem.”

  I have a child who needs my time and effort, who deserves it. Tae lowered his head, knowing argument would prove futile. For better or worse, he had taken this project upon himself, and he would see it through. “I’ll handle it,” he promised, despising every moment the effort took from his own child. Yet he knew his conscience would force him to try.

  * * *

  Tae ignored the aroma of lamb stew, mushroom gravy, crusty bread, and sweet spices that perfumed the hallways leading to Béarn’s kitchen, attention focused on other matters. Shortly after dinner, Rascal had spent far longer than necessary selecting foodstuffs and munching them down in front of the busy kitchen staff. Forced to work around the king-sanctioned thief in their midst, the servants had bustled about her, storing leftovers, replacing items she repeatedly left lying out, and sweeping crumbs that pattered to the floor at her feet. Her grinning insolence made it clear that she would work the king’s decree to its limit, reveling in the control it granted her and the trouble it inflicted on the help. More importantly, their irritation and grand displays of cleaning around her kept them near enough for her to plunder insignias, badges, and other displays of rank, likely her real reason for preferring to take her meals in the kitchen. She barely seemed to notice when Walfron locked the gold torque Tae had given him for this purpose into a drawer.

  Unseen, Tae had watched, rage growing blacker by the moment. Bad enough Rascal chose to continue actions she knew bothered the staff; she did not need to taunt them. Her thefts only fueled his anger. He had stolen his share of food in his time, but never valuables and always from those who could afford much more. Nobles saw all of the poor the same, rabble to disdain or pity depending upon proclivity and conscience. But the underclass ranked itself with the distinction of royalty. The lowest of the low were the bullies who targeted those weaker: murdering street orphans for their meager possessions, victimizing children of the streets for sexual pleasure, or stealing food from the mouths of those already starving. Thwarted by defenses or, more likely, fearing the consequences, Rascal avoided the valuables of a castle full of nobles, instead robbing those who could least afford it. That action alone had turned Tae’s dislike for the child to revulsion.

  Eventually, Rascal had leaped from the table on which she had perched, stretched casually, and headed from the room. As soon as she departed, a server rushed to wash the table, scrubbing vigorously with the strongest cleaners of the castle. The whispered comments about Rascal’s gall and lack of hygiene lasted until the last crumb was swept. Then the kitchen staff put out the lights, heading to bed for the night.

  Tae waited several moments to assure no one would return before creeping into the darkened room, sword knife tapping at his thigh. A cook stove black with ash filled one wall, pots dangling from myriad hooks. A glassless window vented the room, shuttered for the night. Cupboards and drawers lined every other part of the kitchen, stuffed with tableware and utensils of sundry types, all of the same bear design. Tae wondered if Rascal had purloined any of them, though they would prove difficult to fence. She might find no one willing to touch items so obviously taken from the high king.

  Discovering a dark corner between a low chopping block and a solid cabinet, Tae settled into the most comfortable position he could devise, the long knife proving his biggest impediment. During his wait, he thou
ght of Subikahn, hoping Rascal would arrive early enough for him to claim his son for the night. He did not wish to bother Ra-khir and Kevral too late. If she makes me lose a night with my baby . . . He did not bother to complete the threat, even for his own peace of mind. Rascal would choose her time for her own convenience and safety, not to deliberately ruin Tae’s plans.

  Rascal did not make Tae wait as long as he expected. Pink bands of sunset still sifted through cracks in the shutters when the whisking noise of fabric scraping wood touched his ears. No further sounds followed, but a shadow shifted through irregular patches of gray and black. Tae remained as still as stone, keeping his breaths shallow and silent. Pausing several times to scan the room for danger, Rascal sprang onto a working surface and reached for an upper cabinet.

  Diversion, Tae guessed. She had permission to come here. In the case of a trap, kitchen staff would likely confront her as swiftly as possible . . . and find her reaching innocently for food.

  Armed with a bowl of raisins, Rascal clambered from the countertop. Her head swiveled as she studied the room once more. Trusting his choice of hiding place, Tae concentrated solely on remaining motionless. Apparently comfortable, Rascal headed for Walfron’s drawer. For several moments, she hunched over the simple lock, an occasional muffled click or scratch of metal against metal reaching Tae’s ears. He frowned. He had examined the device, a simple rusty affair that could not have thwarted the most ignorant of people who lived by their wits. Even his minuscule experience with locks and robbery would have allowed him to handle it more quickly than Rascal already had.