by Kirby Crow
“You’re the only magic this country has seen in a thousand years.” Liall ignored the remark about men. Scarlet was not ashamed to be known as his lover, but the stigmas inflicted on Scarlet in his homeland were hard to erase. Liall hoped that, in time, he would completely forget them.
He is young. Time will erase those memories, and he will forget that he ever lived in a country that killed men such as him, or put brands of shame on their flesh.
Scarlet scratched his palm idly. “I think my magic is stronger, here. Is that possible? It must be the cold or somesuch. I swear, my hands felt like they wanted to kindle a fire withy when I fell through the deadfall. That wouldn’t have been good.”
Liall went cold at the sudden mental image of Scarlet surrounded by the rotten wood of the deadfall and wreathed in fire.
Esiuk glanced up, his attention pulled from his task by talk of magic. Every curae Liall had ever known was intensely curious about such things. Esiuk was a loyal retainer, but in learned men, the thirst for knowledge was boundless and unpredictable.
“It must have been the fear,” Liall said quickly. “You were frightened.”
“Not that much.”
Liall didn’t want to dwell on the subject, especially not with Esiuk listening. He had trusted Melev once, too. “Well, it’s over now and you’re here, if only a little worse for wear. Nothing broken and now you’re warm and safe. But are you quite finished turning the castle upside-down for the rest of the week?”
Scarlet suddenly looked wary. “Why do you ask that?”
“I may have to be away for a time.”
Scarlet’s expression turned from cautious to blank. “Oh?”
“Yes. It won’t be for very long, I promise.” Just as long as it takes to win a war. The barons are already gathered, all the pawns in one palace, and no queen; just a new king to risk his crown and his head.
“I see.”
And just that. No questions, no protests. The painful and distant wedge growing between them widened. Liall had known from the beginning that their months in Rshan might turn into years, but that was when Cestimir was the heir, and they never expected to remain here forever. After the coronation, Liall had let himself believe that once Scarlet got a feel for the court and his position, he would be happy here. It was no shock to Liall that a reserved Hilurin youth raised in the rustic Byzantur countryside would flounder in the opulence of a royal court, but simply hoping it would get easier with time was wishful thinking. Scarlet had seemed content for a while, but then the rumors about Ressilka had sprouted like weeds. Now there were Rshani who had reasons other than bigotry to make Scarlet feel unwelcome.
I will keep him with me, Liall thought fiercely. No matter what the cost. If all of Rshan, my people, and my birthright must be hung ‘round my neck, so be it, but Scarlet is mine. I will not lose this one happiness.
He looked at Esiuk’s hands as the curae deftly finished sewing the lacerated skin of Scarlet’s calf. “Does it hurt much?”
Scarlet flinched as the needle pushed in and out of his skin. His voice was neutral. “Cuts and bruises. I’ve had worse. It’s nothing.”
Liall’s heart sank. It’s a great deal to me, he thought. You could have been killed. I’d have lost you forever. Why don’t you ask where I’m going? I’d prefer a fight to this.
“This will leave a scar, sire,” Esiuk spoke up. The round dome of his head, shaved smoothly bald like all Rshani physicians, gleamed in the lamplight.
“If it does, you’ll have one to match,” Liall said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Scarlet said.
Liall merely raised a snow-white eyebrow and regarded Scarlet in silence. The quiet remained until Esiuk had bandaged Scarlet’s leg with clean linen.
“Will you be wanting a draught for the pain, ser?” Esiuk inquired.
Scarlet shook his head. “I’ll set a withy to it on my own. Thank you, ser.”
Esiuk gave him an intense stare, and Liall knew that the curae would have desperately liked to see the withy chant in action, but dared not ask. Esiuk packed his tools and left.
When they were truly alone, Liall rose slowly from his chair and stood looking down at the young man to whom he had bound his life and his heart.
“I thought Tesk and Jochi were friends,” Scarlet said. “Why didn’t Tesk speak up for him?”
“Because it was Jochi’s mistake. Tesk was there, Jochi wasn’t. Imagine if you’d insisted on going alone into the grove.”
Scarlet looked a bit too pleased with himself. “So it was my fault, just as I said.”
“I’ll allow that your stubbornness is partly to blame, yes,” Liall said. “But one truth has become very clear to me: your nature requires a bodyguard with vastly more skill, one who can tiptoe around your damned Hilurin obstinacy and still be a sword between you and danger.”
“Oh.” Scarlet rolled his eyes. “I pity this man already.”
“Save the pity for me. A village peasant pedlar putting the high king of Rshan in his place. Don’t think I don’t know how much you enjoy it.”
Scarlet had the grace to smirk. “Well... I never think of you as the king. Whenever I get the better of you, I always imagine it’s Liall of the Kasiri I’m putting on his arse.”
“For charging you too stiff a toll to cross his mountain, no doubt.” Liall carefully slid into the bed beside Scarlet and drew a hand through his black hair, mindful of his injuries.
“Tch, it was never your mountain. I had more claim to the Nerit than ever you did.”
“I had warriors.”
“Brawlers, more like.” Scarlet shifted closer to him. “Now, your Rshani, those are warriors. Never seen men fight so well or so...” He hesitated, searching for a word.
“Single-mindedly,” Liall supplied. He traced a careful finger down the cloth bindings on Scarlet’s arm.
“I suppose that must be the word. Or two words, because your lot never says five words when they can say the same thing in twenty.”
“It’s the long winters. Boredom sets in and must have an outlet of some fashion.”
“Whatever that means. You’re a funny old bunch, no doubt. But I think I got the better deal with you.”
Liall chuckled and pulled Scarlet carefully to lie against his chest. He pressed his nose into Scarlet’s hair to inhale the scent of him. “You do? I’m flattered,” he said, his voice muffled. “That’s as close as you’ve ever gotten to true praise for your king.”
“You ent my king.”
“Aren’t. Are not.” Liall pulled back and tilted Scarlet’s chin up to him. He brushed his lips searchingly over Scarlet’s smooth and hairless cheek, careful of the bruises.
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
He found Scarlet’s mouth and there was no more talking for a while.
***
The hour came while Scarlet was still curled warm around him. A hand shook Liall’s shoulder, and he squinted and cursed until he saw it was Nenos.
Liall sighed. “Oh... yes. It’s today, isn’t it?”
Nenos bowed. “Yes, lord,” he whispered, always careful not to disturb Scarlet, who woke anyway. “Your bath is waiting.”
Scarlet rolled over and flapped a hand at Liall. “Go,” he muttered, pulling the blankets over his head.
Liall got up, stretched, and padded naked to the door.
“Robe,” Scarlet called, muffled under the covers.
Nenos offered a heavy robe and Liall wrapped it awkwardly around his waist, holding it up with his hands. If Scarlet could make the effort to learn Rshani customs, Liall could keep some of the Hilurin ones. In Scarlet’s village, there was a place for nudity and with very few exceptions that place was either the bed or the washing tub.
They had both made enough compromises for each other to know which customs were negotiable and which were not. This one was not.
Chos waited kneeling by the sunken bath, stripped to the waist and nearly obscured by a cloud of steam. He bowed his neck w
hen Liall entered. “Good morning, my lord. I hope you slept well?”
A sharp scent infused the chamber as the cedar panels lining the walls bled their aroma. Still groggy, Liall grunted a reply, let the robe fall, and stepped down into the water. He lowered himself to the waist in the great marble basin and splashed his face before feeling for a seat on the submerged bench. Chos took up the soap and a rough cloth and reached for his shoulders.
When his back was scrubbed clean, Liall thanked Chos and dismissed him.
“Are you sure, my lord? Who will shave you?”
He scraped his hair back from his forehead, feeling the stubble on his chin. “Nenos can do that. Go along, boy, I can manage.”
Chos had a round face (like a full moon, Scarlet had remarked) and a thin mouth that suddenly pinched in disagreement. “But your bath is not finished, sire.”
“I’ll finish it on my own.” Liall stared at the servant when he did not leave. “Am I unaware of some problem?”
Chos bent his neck again. “Of course not. Please excuse me, my lord.” He got to his feet and made a hasty exit.
Now what was that about? There were twenty attendants assigned to the wing, efficient shadows who made every aspect of his personal household from meals to laundry seem effortless. Nenos had selected Chos and three other attendants from their old apartments. Of them all, Chos was the least qualified and the most conspicuous about simply being there.
It was not that Chos was ill-mannered. Quite the opposite, really. He was too courteous, too eager to draw attention to his presence. If he aspired to become a retainer, he would have to learn that his place was not at the center of the room, but in the background.
Nenos was responsible for Chos’s training, which the young man would need if he wanted the freedom to decide where he would be employed and for how much. Many times Liall had overheard Nenos quietly instructing him in table settings, household manners, linens and silver, how to deftly turn away a caller from the door; skills that could be parlayed into a valuable position with a noble house. He wondered if Nenos had some attachment to Chos, or if they were kinsmen. That would explain much.
“I have other problems than the moods of silly servant boys,” he muttered, and dunked his head under the water.
***
When he was dried, shaven, and laced into a plain virca, he sent for Alexyin.
“I hope I’m doing the right thing,” Liall said.
Alexyin held the door open for him. “So do I, my lord.”
They began the long walk to the great hall. Save for the guards posted at intervals along the corridors, they were alone.
Alexyin glanced pointedly at Liall’s necklace. “Two common coins? An odd token for a ruler to wear,” he remarked.
Liall’s necklace was a length of leather cord holding a pair of copper coins with a square hole stamped in the middle of each. He tucked it away into the collar of his virca. “It’s not a token, but a reminder.”
“What does my king need reminding of?”
That my pride is a blindness, he thought. But that would take too much explanation and it was not a memory he wanted to share. Scarlet had given him the coins as toll to travel the mountain road where they met. Liall kept them as a symbol of everything that had happened after that meeting and everything he had learned from it, mostly from Scarlet. The humble necklace was now one of his most precious possessions.
“That I’m never as clever as I pretend to be,” he improvised. “If I’m wrong this time, it won’t be bearskins decorating the palace, but my own hide and probably yours, too. After the murder of their rightful prince and the execution of their spare prince, I fear many believe that the Kinslayer has come home only to finish the job. The rebellion in Magur was bad enough. We can’t afford another.”
“Spare prince,” Alexyin repeated with emphasis. “You never mention Vladei in my presence unless you’re forced to, my lord. Or the Lady Shikhoza.”
Shikhoza had wed Vladei’s brother, Eleferi, only a few days after Cestimir’s interment at the Kingsdal. There had been no funeral for Vladei, nor any mourning. Liall had forbidden it.
“Astute observation. What of it?”
“Nothing, sire, except that if I notice it, others eventually will.”
And wonder at the omission. He glanced at the cold lines of Alexyin’s profile. “Does Ressanda truly believe I crossed the waters of the Norl Ūhn simply to take revenge on my family?”
“A loyal subject would never think such a thing.”
“Loyalty,” Liall stated, “is a matter of perspective. One man’s fealty could be another’s treason. A kingdom divided needs a common threat to unite it, an enemy that all can all agree on. One just happens to be at our gates.”
“The Ava Thule,” Alexyin said.
“The Ava Thule,” Liall echoed. “Don’t say it like they’re a particularly clever figment of my imagination. The threat is very real.”
For many decades, the Ava Thule tribesmen had attacked small villages and towns on the borders of Nau Karmun. Once they had what they wanted—women, food, supplies, and slaves—they vanished again. Vladei had bribed the Ava Thule to swell the ranks of his red guards during the rebellion in Magur, promising the savages rich lands, coin, women, whatever they wished. Before that, the tribesmen had never dared attack a major city. When challenged in force, the Ava Thule way was to retreat deeper into the Tribelands. If pressed, they would go much further, into a hellish place where only Ancients and rift creatures could survive. Somehow, Vladei had been able to cajole thousands of them to join his cause.
“We thinned them out in Magur,” Alexyin said.
“Not thin enough. No matter how many campaigns we wage, they come back. Like lice.”
“Alas for the poor lice of Magur.”
Liall’s brows drew together. “I was disturbed to hear the reports of slaughter that occurred there, but I did not order it. My lady mother did.”
“Is that to be her legacy? Her last act as queen was to murder a city and burn the populace in their beds?”
“No,” Liall snapped. Then, quieter: “No. Let them blame me if they will. It might even work to our advantage in the end. All the world fears a butcher, and we need Uzna Minor and her gentle baroness to support us.”
“Don’t you mean the baron?”
Liall smirked. Eleferi was as much a baron as Alexyin was a dancing master. “What, the little man who kindly offered his balls to Shikhoza along with his wedding ring? My silk-swaddled step-brother would dice, drink, and whore his way through ten lifetimes rather than spend a single moment running his barony. That’s what he has Shikhoza for.”
“Among other purposes. I’ve heard rumor that the baroness and her husband share a lover.”
Liall’s eyebrows went up a notch. “Your ears hear more than mine, then. Who is he?”
“Some disgraced Setna, young enough that I blush to tell you his age. And the tales I’ve heard of his carousing...” Alexyin shook his head. “Though a boy, he’s a libertine to put Eleferi to shame.”
“That’s quite an accomplishment, knowing Eleferi. And you say Shikhoza beds this rogue?” Liall was amazed. “She’s changed.”
They arrived at the doors. A female guard with a starred blue badge of rank on her shoulder bowed and stepped aside.
Liall signaled for the doors to be opened. “Come, friend. Let’s turn our minds from one pack of whores to the next.”
Those who saw the king enter the vaulted chamber of the great hall did so to the sound of Alexyin’s laughter. The low hum and buzzing of voices ceased.
Theor, the king’s equerry and new Master of Horse, stood with axe in hand. The man was a celebrated warrior with a square chin like a block of stone, a white beard, and a chest as broad as a bull.
Theor’s rich voice boomed throughout the hall: “Nazheradei, blood prince of the Camira-Druz, master of the North Sea, Baron of Sul, Baron of Nau Karmun, Prince of the Kalaxes Isles, and Rightful King of Rshan na Ostre!�
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The crowd parted smoothly and bowed low. Liall swept past them, wondering how many of the assembled found Theor’s proclamation as pompous as he did. Alexyin followed him to the dais.
Tesk was present. The man had an obvious manner for a spy, always prating of paintings and art, his perfume announcing him louder than even Theor could have managed. Such a peacock’s mask would fool most, but not everyone.
Still, Tesk had saved Scarlet. Such a service could not be forgotten.
The high, domed blue ceiling was dotted with gold and silver in the patterns of the stars, the Longwalker constellation glittering in crystal and silver directly above the carved wooden platform of the king’s dais. An enormous casement window in the north wall was thrown open to reveal the land spreading out below the heights of the Nauhinir, and the walls were lined with panels of silk tapestries and the banners of noble houses.
A small lacquered chest rested on a table on the dais.
As he mounted the steps, Liall was keenly aware that he did so alone. None of the western barons were present themselves, even though Uzna Minor and Sul were far closer to the Nauhinir than far-flung eastern holdings like Tebet. Liall had at least expected baronial emissaries from Jadizek, but though the baron of Jadizek was the crown’s staunchest eastern ally, none had arrived. All those gathered in the hall were lesser nobles, equerries, secretaries, and the poor relations of nobility sent to listen and report. And Tesk, of course, whose yellow silk virca flashed with brilliant embroidered birds.
There are no teeth in this hall, Liall thought. Whatever he decided, it was obvious that no one wanted to share the responsibility and the resulting blame—or even glory— that might follow. As a Kasiri atya, he had wielded absolute power over his krait, the final word in all disputes. In Rshan, control of the sprawling continent was parceled out to the barons, to govern as the king’s vassal-princes under his justice. But it was still a monarchy, and whether here in the chambers or in the yurts of the krait, both the burden and the blame would fall to him alone.
He was surprised that being the Wolf of Omara and being king of Rshan could feel so similar. My old wolf fangs will have to serve me today.