Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
When Myuri was Ann…
“Thank you,” Myuri said softly, as a servant boy dropped some wood and hearth into the fire place of her sitting room.
He threw her an awkward nod of acknowledgement before crossing the room and marching up a flight of stairs, leaving her alone in the dark, chill basement. This was the young girl’s life – one in the seclusion of her father the king’s private manor hidden in the woods. Her apartments were nice enough; they included sitting rooms, a small library and study, a bedchamber and a bath, all beneath the rest of the quaint house.
She would have few visitors save for maids; she used to have tutors, but her father now cared too little to pay them.
As for entertainment, Myuri would often travel upstairs and watch the servants flirt, secretly yearning to receive those desirous, provocative looks from a man, any man.
“Miss Myuri.”
A maid stood in the doorway, her plain skirts a bundle in her hand. “Miss Myuri, His Majesty the King of Ann has arrived. He gives you a half hour.”
“I thank you,” Myuri said, demurely.
The maid came down the stairs and cleaned the sitting room; she set down a kettle of tea and smoothed the fabric throws of the couch.
Myuri stumbled to her bedchamber and stood before a looking glass. She gathered waist-length snowy hair and brushed it, then smoothed the tattered skirts of her best gown; she propped up the high ruffled collar, and buttoned the bodice up so high and so tight that not a hint of skin was visible. Myuri went to her dresser and pulled open the drawers, where she kept cheap cosmetics stolen from her maids.
“Father has never been fond of me,” she said, softly. “If I was a bit prettier…” Myuri smeared cream about the blemishes of her olive skin, and combed charcoal through her lashes. She pinched desperately at her cheeks praying for some color to appear.
“Miss Myuri, His Majesty is here.” The maid entered, unsmiling, and then disappeared back up the stairs.
Myuri scurried outside into the sitting room; she dropped into her deepest curtsy.“Majesty,” she whispered, hoarsely.
Her father regarded Myuri with a cool look. “Up.”
She knew little of him, this scrawny, wary man standing before her and dripping in ermine, save for that he was king, and perhaps her father. He visited a few times a year, and provided enough moneys; he made sure that she was cared for.
“Mistress Myuri.” King Ascham’s voice was glacial as the winter air outside. He lashed out his hand, and his daughter took and solemnly bent and kissed it.
“I am honored by Your Majesty’s presence,” Myuri said, stiffly. As she rose, she noted a young man standing behind her father – a handsome, fair one, perhaps her age if not a couple years senior.
The king ignored her. “I have brought this man, Lord Aaron Anistol, to care for your household and tutor you in everything a young lady ought to know.”
Myuri frowned. “I am already well-learned, Father. I have had tutors before, and they have all said – as you well know – that I am wonderfully bright.”
“I donot‘well know’, for you are clearly lacking in manners to call your sovereign, ‘Father’!” Ascham roared.
“Majesty, I –”
“I bid you good night, Madam.” At the turn of his heel, the King of Ann was up the stairs and gone soon as he had come.
Does he hate the sight of me so terribly?Myuri thought to herself. She would have liked to fall upon one of the couches and weep, but the pale boy, Lord Anistol, remained, looming awkwardly at the foot of the staircase.
“Well, away with you,” she said, haughtily. She dared not look up and into his face; it would be dangerous to fall victim to his charm.
He sketched a debonair bow, his lips showing a wry smile. “Mistress Myuri. Until dawn, then.” Aaron was gone, as well, the door shutting like a trap behind him.
Myuri threw out her arm subconsciously, half-wishing that she could call him back – until she realized that he was not yet gone. She could hear chatter upstairs, not far from the door; she could hear her father’s voice, and perhaps the boy’s.
“That girl, Majesty, is your daughter, yes?” she heard Anistol say, with all the caution of a courtier.
“Yes, Lord Anistol. Though she is unlike her mother, and I should hope myself, in every way.” Her father’s voice; he spoke of her like rotted worm-wood.
“Mayhap that is why Your Majesty is cold to her?”
Myuri could imagine her father’s cool frown, but his voice was warm enough, perhaps out of affection for the boy. “Perhaps. But, Boy, you must understand – not only is she a daughter, but you have seen with your own eyes how wretched she is! Such a masculine face and physique.”
Anistol thought this a poor reason for Ascham to loathe his daughter, but bit his tongue and waited for more.
“Worst of all, Lord Anistol – now, you mustn’t utter this to a soul, for it is a terrible secret – there is blood in her veins. Yes, blood – not magic as you and I and all else in Myuri have.” He paused. “If anyone knew… if anyone knew of this monster that is mine…”
Monster.
“I would never betray Your Majesty.”
The conversation ended there.
Myuri stumbled to her bedchamber. She drew a little dagger, found a vein about her arm, closed her eyes and slit. She smeared her thumb about the cut – not magic, whatever that was, but blood and a terrible lot of it.
“I am his daughter,” she said to herself. “He does not deny that. But then why am I not Princess of Ann?”Princess Myuri…Princess Myuri of Ann.
Kylani
When she was a Princess…
“The Princess Kylani of Myuri’s Espiarus,” a herald cried out as Kylani swept into the throne room.
The alluring scent of her signature rosewater perfume followed her as, graceful as any princess, she swept curtsy after curtsy before alas coming to stand before her mother and father. “Your Majesties.” She had carefully selected a gown of dark damask with a low, square neckline studded with pearls. Its skirts were tight about the legs, showing their fine shape.
King Napoleon smiled down upon his daughter with great fatherly love. Like every man in Espiarus, he was simply enamored by her. “My beautiful princess.”
Beside him, however, his wife, Elizabeth, looked down upon Kylani glacially and said nothing.
“You are fifteen now, love?” Napoleon asked, in his great, spirited voice.
“Yes, Majesty. For fifteen years I have ever been your most faithful servant, and do intend to remain so,” Kylani said smoothly.
“Until you are Queen of Espiarus, dearest. Then you will be faithful to none but yourself,” her father said, wryly.
“Even then I will be ever-faithful to your memory.”
Masterful, Elizabeth thought.But I am not fooled.
Napoleon laughed. “You must come to court. I will see to it.” He turned to his wife. “Elizabeth? Have you any words for our daughter.”
The queen cleared her throat. “I wish upon you good health, Your Grace.” Her bitter expression contradicted her words. “Good day, then, Madam.”
Kylani hid her disappointment beneath a smile. “Same to you, Madam. And Sire, good day to you as well.” She dropped into a curtsy and then fled the room.
Once the doors were shut behind the princess, Elizabeth rose from her seat. “That daughter of yours,” she said, “is not what you think her to be. She is a schemer, I say – aschemerthat would have you and I out of our thrones.”
Napoleon looked up at his wife as though she were a madwoman. “She is the most charming lady I know – more so than you, I daresay. Where is this coming from, Wife?”
“I beg of you, Sire – disinherit her!”
“Our daughter is all we have, for you have failed to give to me a son. However, this matters little for she is healthy and strong and in every way fit for the throne.”
“Sire, please –”
“No more of this, Madam. To speak against Princess Kylani’s right to the throne is treason, and to commit treason is to lose your head.” He paused, his mouth shutting like a trap. “Being queen-consort does not give you immunity to what the law states.”
Myuri
Myuri rose early, dressing and quickly coming to the dining hall, hoping to find her father. Countless questions were racing through her head, questions she needed him to answer. But only Lord Anistol was present.
“Mistress Myuri, His Majesty left just a bit earlier,” Aaron said, diplomatically bland.
“Oh,” Myuri said softly, “that’s quite unfortunate.”
“Indeed. The cooks are almost done preparing breakfast. May I offer you some ale?” He rose and approached her, a pitcher of ale in his hand.
“No, you may not. I fear you’d poison me.” Myuri was shocked at what she had just dared to say.
“Pardon me, Madam?” Aaron looked greatly taken aback; his expression momentarily softened her.
“Sir, I know you would have me poisoned so as to rid my father of his ‘monster’,” she said, boldly. “I trust you not and so long as you remain here, will live in constant fear for my life.”
“Madam, I would never!” Anistol gasped. He looked away and sighed, ruefully. “You must have heard…”
“Yes.” She turned to the doors, where hungry maids were filing in, their numbers great as that of a clan of ants. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Madam, please…” Aaron followed her to the doorway, his hand reaching out and falling heavily upon her shoulder. “Let me speak to you – let me explain!”
His touch was electrifying, but Myuri pulled away. “Don’t you make a scene,” she whispered, vindictively. She stalked down the hall and let him watch her leave.
.
After spending hours abed, Myuri rose, awoken by a maid standing at her bedside. Her hand immediately fell to a sheathed dagger beneath her pillow, but the maid put a reassuring hand upon her flushed cheek.
“Madam, it is noontime, the allotted hour for you to walk outside in the gardens,” the maid said, softly. “I shall accompany you, if you will it.”
“I don’t will it,” Myuri said, coolly. She rose and drew a cloak she had received for her seventeenth birthday and threw it over her scrawny shoulders. Its collar was trimmed with ermine, and the inside was lined with wool.
“Would you like me to clean your rooms then, Madam?”
“Yes, thank you.” Myuri paused at the door, and turned to face the maid. “Do you know where the Lord Anistol is?”
“Outside, practicing his fencing, I do believe,” the maid said. She smiled. “Heisrather handsome, is he not? Charming, to say the least, hm?”
Myuri blushed. “I don’t find him so,” she lied. “Anyhow, I will be going outside.”
Kylani
“The Lady Aranea, daughter of the Duke of Ali,” a herald announced, as a dark, rather pretty girl stepped forward and curtsied.
“Welcome, my lady,” Princess Kylani said, raising her company with a simple gesture. “You will be accompanying me to my father’s court this evening, yes?”
“Yes,” Aranea said. “I fear it will be a long ride. The roads are worn and muddy.”
“That’s unfortunate.” She paused. “You have been to court before, yes?”
“My whole life, save for last summer.”
“Tell me about it,” Kylani said.
“Well, there is not much you won’t learn for yourself, Your Grace. Dinners are lavish and there is often dancing and other entertainment.” She blushed. “A flirtation here and there…” Aranea’s face suddenly darkened, and she leaned in close before continuing. “But I warn you, there will be some danger. You will make enemies, and you must be wary of their schemes.”
“I know it,” Kylani said. “I already have enemies, and you can bet that I am wary of them.”
“Are you aware that your scheming mother is among them?”
The princess frowned and turned away. “She despises me, I knowthat. But I am her daughter, and I doubt that she would do anything to hurt me.” Kylani paused. “You ought to be careful, yourself, Lady Aranea. She is Espiarus’ queen, and you must speak of her using the respective title of,Her Majesty.”
“I will be careful,” Aranea said, calmly. “As you must be, as well.”
Myuri
“You wanted to speak with me?” Myuri said, level-headedly.
Aaron Anistol was in a line of menservants, about to fence. “I did,” he said, “much earlier. But as you can see, now is not a very good time.”
“Oh, you are right. Now isnota very good time for me; it issochill out here! But you needn’t beg. I will speak with you.” She smirked.
Anistol’s lips cracked into a smile, and he laughed. “You’re clever, hm? Fine, I will. Walk with me?” He offered his arm, and very awkwardly, Myuri put her hand at his elbow.
She suddenly took his hand and touched it to the ermine-lining of her cloak. “What is that?”
He threw her a confused expression. “I’d have thought you would have many more…complexquestions.”
“Oh, I did… and I still do. But…” Myuri blushed. “For right now… I just… I… they don’t matter to me.”
He smiled genuinely. “I understand. And that is ermine, since you asked. The fur of a type of weasel.”
“That is… cruel,” Myuri said, softly.
“His Majesty, your father, loves to hunt,” Anistol said.
“That, too, is cruel.” She closed her eyes. “If I were king, such cruelty would never –”
They stood in silence, and then it all happened too quickly. A maid appeared from behind them, a dagger in her hand; she lunged at Myuri, but Anistol turned and lashed out the rapier from his belt, killing her in a clean slice.
Myuri stared at him, and he at her, for what felt like hours. Then she lifted her chin slightly, and turned away. “I could have done that myself.”
“Aye, but you didn’t.Idid.”
“Was that an assassin?” she asked, softly.
“Just a maid. A mad one, clearly.”
She closed her eyes; her heart was still beating wildly. “Did you know about this? Did you know this would happen?”
“Of course not!” Anistol took her hand in his and squeezed it. “Your father may not love you as he should, but he would never have you hurt so long asyoudon’t hurt him.”
“And I wouldn’t,” Myuri said. “Never.”
“Then don’t fear.” He smiled. “And you know I’d protect you.”
She frowned, and settled down in the snow. It crunched beneath her weight. “You said that he doesn’t love me as he should…”
“Yes,” Anistol said, raising his brow.
“How should he?” she drew back and smiled. “How would you, Sir, if you loved me? How would you love me?”
He laughed, then took and kissed her hand. “Well.”
“What?”
“I would love you well,” he said. “Because you are denied so many things by your father, I would love you well… I suppose.”
She smiled. “I have to go in now, and you have to take care of that carcass and call a lock down.” Myuri sighed. “But I’ve still many questions.”
“Of course, and I understand that. I will come to your rooms this evening, and we may dine and you may ask and I may answer.”
.
Myuri spent the rest of the afternoon studying in her library. Focusing was difficult, though; her mind was with Aaron. What was this feeling gripping at her heart?
It couldn’t be love. She barely knew him! It was more like lust, curiosity… For a girl who lived a life of seclusion, in the shadow of her father’s shame, not many men came along – and definitely not men like Aaron Anistol. He stirred a part of her that no man ever had; he made her loins quiver with a desire she had never once felt. But she wouldn’t let his charm control her – she couldn’t.
“Madam, the Lord Anistol is in your sitting room, here to dine,” a maid said, poking her head into the doorway.
“Thank you.” Quickly, Myuri rose and stood again before her mirror, as she had the day before. She had chosen a looser, more comfortable dress for the evening. It was a filmy green shade, with a linen skirt that reached the knees. She didn’t bother to wear hose, which was unseemly for a maid; she felt comfortable with Aaron.
Her thick, white hair was a long braid running down her back, slightly past her waist. “Good evening, my Lord Anistol,” she said, stepping outside and dropping, subconsciously, into a coquettish curtsy.
“And you, my lady.” He patted the cushion beside him before a low table. Its contents were mutton pie, meat pudding, cakes of bread, boiled and seasoned roots, heated cider and apples drizzled in cinnamon.
They ate in silence for a bit.
“You haven’t touched the mutton pie or the meat pudding,” Aaron said, suspiciously.
She smiled. “If I hadn’t stormed out of breakfast and skipped lunch, you would have known that I don’t eat such foods. I prefer what nature gives me, to what murder does.”
“Murder?” Aaron paused, silently thinking to himself. “Ah, I see.” He smiled. “God bless your soul; you are a greater person than your father.”
“Not hard to do.” She smiled wryly. “Aaron…”
“Yes?”
“The king of Ann – he is my father, yes?”
“Yes,” he said, simply.
“Then, if that is so,” Myuri continued, “why am I not the princess and heir of Ann?”
He closed his eyes. “Myuri…”
“Tell me!” she said. “You promised that you would.”
Aaron collected himself, and then nodded his head. “For several reasons, Myuri. Seventeen years ago, your father kidnapped and…” he searched for the proper words, “had relations with a fairy. You were later borne to her –”
“I see… I am not his legitimate child of marriage, and so I cannot be his heir,” Myuri said, recalling lessons from tutors, years ago.
He blushed. “Perhaps that is one reason.”
“Then what was the one you had in mind?” She threw him a threatening look.
“Not what I had in mind – what your father himself told me.”
“Oh. Continue, then.”
“Despite the fact that both your mother and your father had an abundance of magic flowing through their veins, you did and do not. Now, you must understand –”
“Magic?” Myuri asked, softly. She had heard that word before – last night her father had mentioned it.
“Ah, yes. In Ann, for centuries, magic has been a part of life. All of Annians, or, most, I should say, are born with it, and though not many choose to develop their magic fully and become sorcerers, they all keep and use it when convenient,” Anistol explained, slowly, as though Myuri were just a child.
“But I get along fine without it!” Myuri gasped, exasperated. “I do!”
“I’m not saying you don’t. But your father is prejudiced against people like you,” he said, wryly. “Myuri, I think he is wrong in how he feels about and treats you. I wish that it was in my power to give to you what you deserve.”
A silence then transpired between the two; neither ate nor spoke for a long period of time. Then, after looking deep into his face, Myuri spoke.
“There’s something else, Aaron. Something else my father hates about me… another reason why I cannot be his heir. Tell me, Aaron.” She closed her eyes. Her face was indeed masculine, bold with strong bones and accented with lines of sorrow, wariness, and pain caused by her father’s neglect and distaste for her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.
“You cannot hurt me for telling the truth.”
“He thinks…” Aaron hesitated. “He thinks your appearance… he called you a man.”
“Oh,” Myuri said, softly. “I see. You needn’t say more.”
He continued anyway. “Your mother was beautiful, and your father was very much in love with her. He will never be able to forgive her for dumping you on him, and breaking his heart.” He turned away, as though too ashamed to look at her. “I think he is wrong!” Aaron said, passionately. “I think you would make a greater queen than he is king, Myuri – I do.”
She closed her eyes, and felt her cheeks burn as two tears streamed steadily down her face. “But what good does that do me?”
“I can help you, Myuri. I have your father’s ear! He adores me like a son. I will use his affections to help your cause,” he promised.
“What? My cause… what does that mean?”
“While some would be critical of your lack of magic, many would support your claim to the throne. Your father has no heirs; he is unhealthy and his wife is barren. If he were to die now, Ann would be plunged into a great civil war. It would be much easier to just put you on the throne,” Aaron explained. “Ann is a tiny, weak kingdom. Civil war would destroy it.”
“But if they saw me… would they accept me?”
“Of course!” Aaron said, with more confidence than he felt. “You are beautiful, Myuri. Perhaps not conventionally, but you certainly are.”
“Lord Anistol, I could not ask you to help me. I could not ask you to betray my father.”
“I want to help you,” he said, shortly. “And Myuri, your father is a tyrant. I will use his trust in me for your benefit.”
“Hush!” she whispered sharply. The door up the stairs had opened, and a maid suddenly appeared. “We are no longer hungry,” Myuri said. “Clean up.”
The maid quickly got to work, and Myuri rose and began towards her bedchamber. She turned and gestured for Anistol to follow her. He did, and let the door shut behind them.
“What is it, Myuri?” Aaron asked, confused, aroused, and nervous, as, all at once, she unlaced her dress and let it slither down her body.
“I thought you’d want to do something else other than talk, tonight, fun as it is…” she smiled up at him flirtatiously, and Aaron saw a deep beauty in her face that no one had ever seen before.
“Of course,” he whispered, as though in a trance. His hands came down upon her body; her skin was leathery to the smooth he felt on other women he had made love to in times past. But he hadn’t loved any of these women, had never felt for them the way he did, this one.
She blushed, suddenly, and pulled back.
“Myuri? Something wrong?”
“I don’t know how this works,” she confessed, embarrassed. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I can’t expect you to have,” he laughed. “And it will be fine. I wouldn’t dream of hurting you.”
And so Myuri smiled and closed her eyes; she waited for his mouth and then it came, falling hard upon hers. The sensation was glorious; she wanted more, she couldn’t get enough. Her arms wrapped round his neck, and subconsciously, she pulled him closer to her. Then his mouth sought her neck, her pointed little breasts, and, brazenly, she threw back her head and let him have her. He picked her up and then they were lying on the bed. All else melted away; her world became Aaron Anistol.
“Myuri, oh, Myuri…” he breathed. He held her in his arms, and, gently, wedged his thigh between her legs, entering her with a sigh of both desire and satisfaction.
This position was awkward for Myuri, who seldom ever opened her legs save for when bathing. There was some pain, but only a little bit, and all confusion and distaste were swept away once he kissed her again.
His hands continued to feel her, grope her, with a passion her body had never once known. No one had ever loved her until that night, and she would smile at the thought of it for the rest of her life. “Aaron,” she whispered.
“My love?”
“Nothing,” she replied, with a little laugh. “I just wanted to hear you say that.”
“Oh, my love,” he whispered, “your body is a wonderful paradise… a majestic kingdom – oh, yes, a kingdom. Once you become Queen of Ann, you must change its name to ‘Myuri’.”
“Oh, I do intend to,” she said. “But first, let’s worry about how I will become queen.”
Kylani
“Oh, my God!” Princess Kylani dashed from the dark corridors after her mother. “I must see him, I must see Father! Oh, God, is he hurt?”
King Napoleon had taken a fall not yet an hour ago, during a jousting tournament he had arranged. The tournament was instantly set aside, and Napoleon’s unconscious body was whisked away to be privately seen to by his doctors.
“He is alive,” Elizabeth said, coolly. “His armor was not broken into, just a fall. His doctors say he will recover; he just needs to rest.”
“What a relief,” the princess sighed. “Now, I must see him!”
Elizabeth frowned. “You… you can’t,” she lied. And then wicked thoughts crept into her head. “If you’ve anything to say to him, tell me and I shall go right now and tell him.”
Kylani thought this unfair, but she didn’t want to give the mother who despised her reason to be further upset. “Tell him… that I love him,” she said softly. “That I will pray for him, and think of him always.”
“I will tell him,” the queen lied.
.
A bit more than two weeks had passed since the fatal jousting accident, and Napoleon had been up and roaming his court for a couple of days. He was yet to visit his daughter, and so, nervous as to what this could mean, Kylani went to see him herself.
“I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” he said, surprisingly stern, once she entered his receiving rooms.
“Then why didn’t you, Father!” she cried, momentarily forgetting that he was her sovereign. She rushed towards him, her arms opening up in preparation for an embrace, but he rose and pulled away, coldly.
“Your mother told me what you said,” he said, ignoring her. “That you wanted my approval before my death on reforming religion upon becoming queen.”
“Father, I never –”
“Silence!” he roared. “Do not you ever call me that again, you ungrateful tramp!”
“Majesty, please,” Kylani whispered, not daring to meet his gaze.
“Is that all that matters to you: becoming queen? You didn’t care one bit that I almost died?” his face was red with fury. “You will not be made Queen of Espiarus until I will that you be!”
“I will be queen when I want to be,” Kylani whispered under her breath.
“What?”
“If that is all, then, Majesty?” she asked, coolly.
“Leave me!” Napoleon cried. “You will soon pay for your disrespect.”
Kylani dropped into a solemn curtsy, for once in her life out of duty rather than genuine love and respect, and left him.
At that moment, Kylani forgot the tenderness her heart had once bore for her father. His love was clearly conditional, and his trust even more so, that he would listen his to his snare of a wife over his beloved daughter. She now had only contempt for him; now that he meant so much less to her, the throne seemed to mean exponentially more.
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
Time has Passed
“Justin,” Klaude said softly, creeping to where Justinian lay just outside the carriage. “My lord…”
“Klaude,” he whispered, idly.
“My lord, I pray you wake up.”
He sat up and patted his lap invitingly. “Yes?”
She closed her eyes and after a great deal of suspense had been made, she spoke. “I am with your child. I waited until I was sure to tell you.”
“Klaude!” he gasped, dazed with both excitement and nerve. Suddenly he recalled the night he had found her, left for dead by some drunkard. “Mine, yes..?”
Klaude frowned. “Of course.”
“This is fine news, but…”
“What?” she asked, irritably. She pulled away from him slightly.
“You have to go.” He closed his eyes as though in great pain. “You know this journey is not one for a pregnant lady. I wouldn’t risk our child.”
“I can’t be without you!”
“Shh, Klaude,” he whispered, folding his arms around her. “Don’t wake them. And you must – for the good of our child. I will return to you when this is all over.”
“I will eat poppy seed and cast myself into a river,” she swore fighting tears as she buried her face into his chest. “If I must be without you for even a moment…”
“I wouldn’t have you so miserable…” he whispered, holding her closer. “I couldn’t let you hurt yourself.”
“Then do not you hurt me.” She paused. “How many months do you say, Justinian?”
“How long have you been with child?”
“I should think a couple months in,” Klaude replied, thoughtfully.
“Another seven to nine months, then, perhaps.”
Klaude recalled the night at the Lucidele, the night the snake had cursed her almost four months previously. She had been given one year, which was twelve months… Eight more months, then. “Pray God the child comes soon,” she whispered to herself.
“Yes,” Justinian said, awkwardly.
“Justinian?”
“Yes?”
Klaude turned away from him so he would not see her tears. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Months had passed, months of hard, tireless travel. They had stopped only at markets for food and whatever else was needed, and for washing. Klaude was always particularly cared for, her child growing large and healthy within.
“Should I write back to him?” Reina asked, as she and Klaude soaked their wares in the brook.
Klaude drew a staff and beat the clothes down into the soapy waters, and turned to face Reina; she shaded her eyes from the wretched summer sun. “The King Ardin? No. You shouldn’t.”
“Why?” Reina asked, her face bearing the pout of a child.
“Because if you will not be returning to him, then you should help him to forget you.” Klaude studied the dark young woman for a moment, and saw a selfish girl, a selfish, vain girl who fed on the praise, admiration and desire of men.
“Why should he forget me?” The thought of any man forgetting her, as she believed Eric had, made Reina sick with bitterness.
Klaude recalled the way the king had looked at Reina, how clear he had made his desire to the gossiping court around him. “He should forget you, for the very memory of you could be his undoing.”
*
“The king is dead.” The Earl Marshal of Myuri appeared upon a grand balcony overseeing Congrella’s palace dining hall.
Almost five months had elapsed since King Ardin’s mysterious departure.
The court was eating a simple dinner in confusion, wondering where its king had gone until the deliverance of those four words. All was silent so that he could continue.
“His body has been found by priests of Mount Amour. God rest his soul.” The Earl Marshal almost laughed – the healthier, handsomer younger king had reigned only a couple moons to his sickly, old father’s almost forty.
“As for succession…” he hesitated, remembering a document the late king had sent requesting a change in succession – but nothing had been signed, and so succession would remain as it was. “The King Ardin’s beloved ward, Princess Rynn, is now Queen of Myuri. However, she is but an infant, and so her birth-father, Eric, is to be King-Regent of Myuri.”
The court remained silent. Eric, the roguish former master of horse, so despised by the late King Ardin that he had been banished, was to be king?And for at least fifteen years until his daughter is of age!
“I bid you all good night,” the Earl Marshal said meekly. He then left to retire to his rooms.
Vella rose from her seat; she picked up the skirts of her gown and hurried out into the hallway after him. As she ran, she could almost feel Ardin’s ghost chasing her. “My lord!”
“My Lady Vella.” He turned and sketched a careless bow.
“My lord, the… the succession,” she stammered, nervously.I have missed my course. I am indefinitely with child, with the late king’s bastard. “Pardon my forwardness, but I daresay you are mistaken.”
“Ah,” the earl said, “so you heard. The king did request a reevaluation of the succession line, but nothing was yet seen to nor signed before his most unfortunate and untimely death, and so no changes could legally be made. The succession will remain as it was upon his death.”
“But, my lord, the Lord Eric is not at court; no one is aware of his location.”
“His Majesty kept Lord Eric and his party tracked…”
“Tracked? By that you mean he lay in his bed and highlighted maps!” Vella cried, throwing her arms into the air in a fit of exasperation. She closed her eyes and collected herself. “My lord, the Lord Eric could be anywhere on God’s green earth. And youdoknow what this means, do you not, my lord?”
“I do.” The earl’s face was a dark grimace. “Myuri is without a king when it needs one most. They say the Queen Kylani advances closer and closer each day; she does not stop for a moment.” He paused and looked her in the eye. “My lady, if you value your life you will leave court. The sooner the better. We shall all evacuate within a week.” He sighed, and turned away so that the young maid would not see the tears that now streaked his hot, damp cheeks. “Myuri is doomed.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Vella whispered, her lips shaking.
“What –”
“I have Myuri’s true heir in here.” She put her hand to her belly and closed her eyes.
Vella waited for the Earl Marshal to reply, but after a long pause, his hand came and lashed at her cheek.
“You are with the late king’s child?” he cried, his face reddened with rage.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Out of my sight, you damned slut!” the Earl Marshal roared, grabbing her shoulders and shaking them furiously. “You were not his wedded wife and so the child is nothing but a bastard!”
“It was His Majesty’s own wish!” Vella cried. “He thought me worthy to bear his child, and so as his subject, you must, as well!”
“Heis dead. His wish now means next to nothing, next toyours.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “Do you not think your father had great plans for your future? Great plans forhisfuture, more importantly, nowruined? Had you betrothed to that Sir Thomas, Myuri’s greatest courtier, didn’t he?” The Earl Marshal’s face darkened. “That is ruined, too.”
“It isnot!” Vella raged, sounding like a sullen girl. “Thomaslovesme!”
“Think you he will, when he hears of your disgrace? When all of court hears of it?” His expression hardened like stone. “Leave, Vella. To your country manor or some whorehouse, if it please you. You now mean nothing. You are ruined.”
“I meaneverything! I am withthe king’schild!” Vella flew at him, but the earl settled his heavy hands upon her shoulders and turned her around.
“Good-bye, Vella.”
“Fine, I will leave,” she whispered, her heart throbbing and the blood pounding in her ears. “But someday this child will be king, if not just for one day, and youwillbow down to him.”
As she walked down the great hall to her rooms, all Vella could hear was the thunderous laughter of the Earl Marshal behind her.
*
“Perfect.” Kylani drew some moneys from a satchel and carelessly tossed them at her spy messenger. “The King Ardin is dead.”
“Yes, Majesty, and his heir is gone to God knows where, leaving Myuri vulnerable and ready for a strong queen like yourself.” The lad smiled up at her, waiting for more coins to rain upon him for his compliment.
Kylani slapped a hunk of silver into his palm. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me. I have long awaited this opportunity. Even if Ardin lived, I would have come and killed him with my own hand. It has been just under six months since the start of my conquest, and alas it has come to an end.” She smiled. “I said that I would be, and I will be Queen of Myuri.”
“Oh, yes, Majesty, and a fine one you will make.” The boy smiled. “And I am sure the Lord Warren will make for an excellent King of Myuri.”
Kylani frowned. “Consort,” she corrected him, slowly. “King-consort of Myuri.”
“Is it not the same… or almost?” the boy asked, confused. “At any rate, I am sure he will guide this kingdom well at your side.”
“Enough!” Kylani suddenly cried. “He will not guide this kingdom – I will! I will be the Queen of Myuri! I! Me! Not him!”
“If that please Your Majesty,” the spy said, faintly. He sketched a nervous bow. “I do so hope he will be to you a lawful husband and…” he paused, “You, a lawful wife.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“However you choose to interpret it, Majesty.”
As Kylani watched him leave, her anger came to cool down. She sunk back into her chair, deep in thought. “Lose my love,” she whispered, “or lose supreme power? Oh, God, which?”
“But first I must make this throne mine,” Kylani said.
She summoned the messenger back. “Travel south once we reach Congrella – by sun-up on the morrow, I do believe – and go to the war camp at Mira. Tell them to begin their march to the capital, and I shall meet them there. We will push through the city, and then,” Kylani paused and smiled wickedly, “I shall plant my arse upon the throne of Myuri.”
The boy quickly scribbled her orders onto a sheet of parchment and bowed. “As you wish,” he said, “so it will be, Majesty.”
*
Aranea woke up noxious, the world around her spinning the way it always would each morning. She turned on her side and peered out the window; the sun was rising on another miserable day in bed. Her hand flew to her belly, where a babe was growing stronger and larger each day. How many months in, now? Six? No – seven.
“Pray god I miscarry this wretched thing,” she swore, turning to the only person who knew her secret.
“You don’t mean that, my lady,” her bedfellow and maid, Anne, said sympathetically.
“You’re right,” Aranea sighed, “I don’t. I would so like to be a mother, but Anne, at what cost? My reputation, surely, and perhaps my head if Kylani knew this child’s father!”
“Shh, hush, now, Your Grace. Can I get you something to eat?”
“Strawberries and oregano tea, if you’d please, Anne,” Aranea said. She hesitated. “But wait – tell me what the court is saying about me.”
“They suspect nothing, naturally, Your Grace – why should they? They all presume you are ill.” Anne turned away. “Deathly ill.”
“Oh, Anne – I almost believe I am, the way I am feeling right now! My tea and strawberries, please!”
The maid scurried away, bursting through the door only minutes later. She set a bowl of strawberries and a kettle of tea upon Aranea’s bedside table, and then threw her arms into the air wildly. “The king of Myuri is dead!”
Aranea instantly sat up. “What?”
“King Ardin is dead, and Kylani is now Queen of Myuri!”
“Oh, this is wonderful news!” Aranea said, with happiness she did not feel. Was it wonderful news? Now that Kylani was queen, she was free to take Warren as her husband. Kylani was free to take Aranea’s love from her once and for all – and, of course, all prospects for the child Aranea would deliver.
“But did Ardin not have an heir? How is Kylani Queen?”
“She should not be,” Anne said, shaking her head. “She is an usurper, as you and I and all of Myuri know. She has snatched the throne from Lord Eric and his daughter Princess Rynn by a majority vote of the other state councils – for, as you know, she is queen of all states and has chosen councils that support her. All ruled that she ought to be queen, due to her ownership of all states. To enforce her power, Kylani also paraded through the capital with the help of a war camp in the south.”
“Then that is good,” Aranea said, softly. She turned on her side.
“It is not.” Anne’s face darkened. She drew a letter and shook it. “She demands that you come to the capital and wait on her!”
“Does she not know I am ‘deathly ill’?” Aranea moaned, taking a strawberry and putting it at her lips. “Travel would surely kill me.”
“If she does, Kylani cares little,” Anne said. “She says you must come as soon as possible.”
“But look at me!” Aranea cried.
“Calm yourself,” Anne said, soothingly. “If the queen is your friend as you say she is, then Kylani will most definitely help you with this situation.”
“Not if she knew –”
“But she doesn’t. So you will go to court and receive help.”
“Very well, Anne. If you accompany me,” Aranea said.
“Of course.”
“And, Anne? Are there any other letters?”
“No letters, but this, Aranea.” Anne drew a small package. “Poppy seeds. There was no message.”
Aranea took the package and went to the window. She held it in her hand and studied it; Warren’s initials were scribbled upon the package. How dare he? “Poppy seeds are an abortive seed, yes?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes and tossed the package from the window. “Anne, some privacy, please.”
Aranea watched her maid leave, and then threw herself onto the bed. Perhaps at some time Warren had indeed loved her – but it was now clear that he loved Kylani’s crown more.
*
“Then I should be the King-Regent of Myuri,” Eric said, frowning.
“Yes, technically, Sire. But by act of parliament, the Queen Kylani has been made Queen of Myuri – as she has been for close to two moons,” the messenger said, shakily.
“And I have just been told now?”
“Yes. I apologize, Sire, but you have been nowhere to be found for a very long time,” the man said, bitterly. The inn around them was good as empty; the party was supping by a fire.
“I understand,” Eric said, sulkily. “And so what should I do?”
“Come nowhere near the capital –”
“Do you think me a fool?” Eric spat. “The operation I am acting upon is that of the true king’s mandate, and is the good people of Myuri’s last hope.” He closed his eyes. “If this works, I could be king, and my daughter, queen…”
“Queen Kylani’s throne is ever-secure, and so you had better keep such thoughts to yourself. You had better be careful.” He frowned and rose from his seat. “Godspeed to you, my lord. There are many others like myself that respect you as the true king of Myuri. But till then keep safe – you are high on the queen’s kill list. Perhaps second.”
“Who is first?” Eric flushed.
“Your daughter.”
.
Eric leaned over the balcony of his room; the first weeks of the new year had come and gone, like summer and fall. Snow was falling in glacial sheets to the ground right before his eyes. How had everything changed in such a short time? How could he have been nothing one day, and the rightful King of Myuri the next? He had come to King Ardin’s court, fallen in love with Reina, and yet…
Nene.
“My lord, come inside. It is so cold, out here.” She was dripping with the foreign cottons of a luxurious coat she had forced him to purchase for her.
“Yes, love, in a minute.”
“You look upset,” she whispered, creeping closer to Eric’s horror and clinging to his arm. She nestled her head into his shoulder.
“I wasn’t.”
Nene pulled away and glared. “My presence upsets you?”
“Right now, yes.” He didn’t so much as look at her. “Nene, please – I’ve a lot on my mind. Spare me a moment –”
“I’ll go and fetch the Lady Reina if you will it.” Eric didn’t miss the venom in her voice. “I know you’re thinking of her, anyway.”
“Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “Don’t. I should have left you that night, all those months ago, shouldn’t I have? If I had, I would have been happy and alone at this moment.”
“Alone, yes,” Nene conceded, bitterly, “but happy, no, for so long as we – Reina and I – both live, you could never be happy.”
Eric turned and put his hand on her hip. The moonlight lapped at her skin; she was more golden than usual. Her coquettish smile put the stars in the sky to shame. “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed into her neck, bending to kiss her eyes and drag his lips about her face.
“Of course,” Nene said, closing her eyes and smiling. “I am your whore.”
“Don’t say that!” Eric reproved, though he was drunk with desire. “Oh, Nene…”
“In love, Eric?”
“Maybe,” he conceded. He pulled back and looked at her, once more. She looked like a fair winter princess. “Oh, yes.”
“You look tired,” she whispered seductively. “Come to bed.”
And so Eric came, and all through the night, Nene tried to ignore his wails of, “Reina, oh, Reina!”
.
At dawn, Eric’s bedchamber was warmed by a fire in the hearth. Nene was kneeling before it, her hands grasping at its radiating warmth.
“Good morrow, Your Majesty.” She was already dressed and seemed refreshed, as though she had been up and awake for hours.
He smiled. “If only I were indeed king.”
“And if you would make me your queen, I daresay an heir would soon enough be born to us,” Nene said, steadily and diplomatically. Her hand stroked her belly.
“Nene…” Eric breathed, “you are… with child?”
“I do believe so, Majesty.” They were both silent for a moment before she rose from the cushion upon the fireplace side, crept back into the bed, and continued. “You must marry me, now that you are Myuri’s king. I will not have an illegitimate child off of you.”
“King-regent,” he corrected her, irritably. “Not king. There is a great difference that you seem to be forgetting.”
“Even so!” Nene wailed. “I will not have your bastard, Eric!”
He closed his eyes as though the sight of her was painful. “Nene, please – marry you now? How on earth…?”
“Unless you want me to remain your whore forever,” she said, weakly. “Sire, you do demean me so!”
“Are you sure that you are with child, Nene?” Eric asked, calmly.
“Fool!” Nene cried. “Of course I am. I am young and fertile and have never known a man with so steady a desire as yours!”
“I have a proposal for you,” he said, simply. “If you do indeed have my child, then, if by some miracle I become Myuri’s king, I will wed you. But if I am never made king, I will still acknowledge the child as mine.”
“So it would take the crown to make you marry me?” Nene whispered, feigning great hurt. “Your love is ever conditional… ever turbulent as the raging seas.” She paused dramatically. “For that reason I will always crave it with all the passion of a whore.”
*
“I can see Ascendon from here,” Zelda said.
Up in a drifting cloud, the Heiji sisters gazed down upon the region of Ascendon.
“How many months has it been?” she said, dreamily.
“Too many,” Aurella replied through gritted teeth. “Enough for Kylani to become Queen of Myuri without Myuri I’s help – and more importantly, ours.”
“I don’t see the issue,” Zelda said.
“Because you’re a fool,” Etsuko said shortly. “Many months ago, Kylani ordered us to go to Ascendon and call forth the dead queen for her skills in war and politics. But now she has achieved queenship herself, without our help. We are nothing to her now but threats to her power.” Her face darkened. “And Kylani will not stand for threats to her power.”
“But she is just a mortal, what can she –”
“You’re wrong.” Aurella closed her eyes, as though in great pain. “We gave her immortality, invincibility that even God Himself cannot take away.”
“Why would she hurt us?” Zelda pressed, childishly. “We support her and our power is a valuable asset to her.”
“But that’s not enough to outweigh the potential consequences we could bring her,” Etsuko said, in frustration. “If she could, she would have us dead.”
“But she cannot, for her life-line is tied with ours, though, yes?”
“Yes,” Etsuko said, “but she could have us imprisoned for life.”
“Then what do we do?” Zelda asked in a small voice, burying her face into the soft fluffs of cloud.
“We summon Queen Myuri for her, still. This will surely help frighten subjects and rebels into submission, though whether the dead queen is submissive enough for Kylani’s tastes, we can never be sure.” Etsuko’s smile was too sweet. “We appear to her in every way loyal.”
“But what if Queen Myuri simply causes trouble?”
“We will be doing as Kylani herself has ordered us.”
Zelda laughed dryly. “How could this work, though? How could they ever work together? Both so arrogant… and with such similar stories…”
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
A snake slithered in through the cottage window, and its mistress reached out a pale hand of long, slender fingers; it submissively slithered from hand to arm to shoulder.
“He is coming to the woods, milady. Ready yourself,” it said.
Klaude had been allowed to sit by the fireplace, while she was to be Etsuko’s prisoner. “Who?”
“Your lover Justinian,” Etsuko said, heartlessly. “I bid him come to me, if he wishes to see you again.”
Klaude stood, only to throw herself onto her knees once more. “I call back my words – hurt me as you see fit, but not him! I heed you take my life now; it would be worthless should you take his.”
The witch was quiet for a bit, stopping at the door to turn and face the girl kneeling before her. “Would you die for him, child? I think you are all talk.”
“I would kill myself if you were to hurt him,” Klaude whimpered.
“Save your words, I’m without need of them. I will not hurt him or you.”
“I thank you for your mercy.”
“I am merciful, aren’t I?” Etsuko laughed like a madwoman, briefly. And then her jaw hardened and she drowned once more. “But I hate you still.”
“You don’t even know me,” Klaude gasped. “And I don’t, you.”
“I know enough about you to despise you. The only man I have ever been wholesomely taken with is yours.”
“Please –”
“You deserve punishment,” Etsuko said, vindictively.
“You said you would not hurt me, nor him!”
“I will not,” the witch replied, with a shrug. She petted her snake and then tossed it from her shoulders to the floor. “My dear snake, Curse, will punish you as he sees fit.”
*
Reina lay in her bed uneasily; she could not sleep, not with an image of Eric with his arm wrapped round that slut’s waist on her mind.
He was intoxicated, surely, and hadn’t meant what he said. The girl would soon be gone and forgotten, and he would come back to her. She would forgive him for his mistake, and he would marry her.
But still Reina could not sleep, and so she rose from her bed and stood before a long, rich looking glass. She was much, much prettier than that whore, wasn’t she? She stripped her nightdress so that her long, velvety black hair cloaked her body, tumbled down a grand pair of breasts to her waist. Her skin was white and smooth.
Who could resist her? Not Eric! Reina frowned, for a question she had never once thought to ask herself struck her: What did he want from her? Did he want her body? Her face? Her mind, her wit? And, whatever it was, would he want it forever?
*
“Should you feed the fire?” Klaude asked the serpent, quite boldly. Her hands reached to the fire for warmth that did not come.
It slithered to her from the cottage’s floor. “I should feed you to it.”
She frowned. “What does your mistress wish to do to me? Keep me here forever?”
“No, not long at all,” the snake replied.
“Why does she detest me so? She does not know me.”
“Because she is in love with your betrothed, foolish child!” it cried, spitefully.
A great anger suddenly welled in Klaude’s heart. “In love? She does not even know him!”
“You are a fool to speak against my mistress when you are at her mercy!” At that, the creature suddenly flung itself at Klaude, wrapping round her body. She sucked as much air as she possibly could, then closed her eyes and waited for death to suffocate her.
But then, the snake left her body and rested before her.
“So, Klaude – would you die for this man whom my mistress pursues?”
She frowned. “Why that question of which you should already know the answer? Yes… of course.” A faint smile spread across her lips. “His love is the air I breathe. His love is what keeps me alive.”
“And a lack of it will be what kills you.”
Suddenly, a rush of what was undoubtedly magic surged through Klaude’s body, and she knew that the serpent’s unwelcome embrace had had some effect on her. “W-What have you done?” she shrieked.
“I have bestowed upon you a great prophesy,” its sharp little tongue flung spit at her. “Twelve moons from this night, you will surely die, lest your true love kiss your mouth. And, should he do so, then he should die.”
“The very nerve of you to lie to me, like this,” Klaude spat.
“But I do not lie.”
She looked into the wicked face of the beast, and knew it spoke the truth. The world around her was spinning, and then it turned black.
.
In the dark of the woods, Justinian could see a figure. “Klaude?”
He came closer, and recognized the woman from the tavern. She stood before him naked, her dress and cloak shed at her feet, hair long and red like Klaude’s forming a cape along her back. “My lord,” she breathed.
For a moment, Justinian was tempted to reach out and touch her; he almost stiffened. The world around him gave way to a lush dream of sensuality, but then he remembered why he had come. “Who are you?” He took another look at her; she looked far from human. “What are you?”
She smiled sweetly. “I am Etsuko Heiji and I,” she reached for him, two slender hands wrapping around his neck, “I am yours.”
He pushed her back. “Where is Klaude?”
“Dead!” Etsuko swore. At his reaction, she sighed sympathetically. “Well, she could be if I willed it.”
Justinian frantically reached for her shoulders and shook them. “Please,” he said, “return her to me. I-I would do everything, anything.”
She brought his hand to a perfectly round breast, squeezing and sighing. “You need only do one.”
He tried to withdraw his hand, but she held it tightly. “What?” Justinian asked.
She smiled and circled him, covering him with her hands and licking at his skin like a wanton cat. “Make love to me,” Etsuko said, breathlessly.
“W-What!” Justinian gasped, violently shoving her away; he feared that if he did not, he would be sucked in to her desires, surrender himself to a woman who was not Klaude. “I will not, could not…”
“I need only utter the words, and she will be dead.” She threw him a malicious smile. “But I don’t need to.”
He turned away and thought; he took another look at her. Much to her advantage, the moon shone full upon her; she stood before him a goddess, the stars wrapping round her like a frame against a beautiful painting. In that moment, his loins told him that he was in love, though his heart yearned only for Klaude. “Fine.”
At that one word, Etsuko crossed what was the small distance between them. She forced his lightly armored suit to the ground, and felt his skin, forcing hers against it. Her hands found and encouraged his cock, leading him to a bed of the first leaves of fall. She parted her legs, and he followed suit; she opened her mouth and pushed against his neck, forcing his tongue to enter.
In spite of himself, Justinian found himself delighting in her maze-of-a-body. Intercourse with her was so different from the familiar rhythm of doing so with Klaude, who was sweet and demure and easy in bed like she always was. But to make love to Etsuko was like courting fire; she did not moan or cry out like a helpless little girl. She was strong as he was, pushed hard as he did; she forced his body to become engaged. He dared to try for a groan from her lips.
At last, she pushed him away, and then brought herself back to him, easing one of his great, muscular arms around her body. “My lord, was that so terrible?”
“No…”
“But you still favor her, don’t you?” Etsuko said, frowning and turning away. “Still favor her, though she is just a plain little girl, and I am a beautifully irresistible sorceress?”
“Of course I do,” he said, unsympathetically.
Etsuko faced him once again, and Justinian could not even recognize her. Before him stood a woman ancient in appearance, her face ravaged with scars, her hair worn white tresses.
“This is the real me,” that same seductive voice whispered. “I could never blame you for not loving such filth.”
“Do not blame me, nor yourself.” He touched her cheek affectionately, and watched her face light up like a girl’s. “I think you are beautiful, even in this state, but I am deeply, truly in love with another, and not even a lovely sorceress like yourself could change this.”
“Stand my friend,” she breathed. “Stand my friend though we are of different factions.” She paused, and Justinian saw in her face all that she was aware of – Mount Ascendon, everything… “Keep me in your heart.”
“Always,” he said. “I am honored to possess the love of so great a woman.”
They rose and Etsuko embraced him, her tears soaking the skin of his firm chest. She pulled away and smiled ruefully. “Then I will go and get Klaude.”
*
Why should the daughter of so wicked a knave be my heir? Ardin thought to himself, pacing about his chamber. She should not be – that is the answer!
“And yet I could die,” he whispered to himself, turning on his side in bed. He had seldom left his bed in the past week, mourning the loss of his infamous love. “If I travel to the Mount Amour and do not return…”
His favorite page brought his breakfast tray: Wine, broth, bread cakes, and strawberries. “Anything else, Majesty?”
“Some writing tools, Owain,” Ardin ordered, imperiously. “And I would like the princess dispatched to Willow House with her staff of maids.”
Owain bowed his head. “As you wish, Majesty. I shall speak to your ward’s, the Princess Dele’s, chamberlain and order a coach readied.” He paused before leaving. “Should you like to see Her Grace?”
“No, and don’t call her that. I shall disinherit her and see to it that she is nothing, very soon.”
The boy frowned, but bowed and left. As all kings did, especially an intemperate man who was not yet twenty-two, when Ardin changed his mind, he changed it quickly.
The writing tools were brought to the king, and he wrote a letter to the next inn along Eric’s path, following the Lucidele – Crezia.
He addressed it to Reina, whose face was what had driven him to assassinate his own ever-loving father. Old men are not meant to be lovers, he had thought to himself, and yet he had been spurned by heartless Reina, as well. Perhaps the only man for her would always be that dark gypsy, Eric.
Ardin lay still, his head against pillows stuffed with rose petals. Around him, grooms and pages and gentlemen of the privy were gathered, trying to read his mind. But his faced betrayed none of the emotions rushing through him.
Finally, he spoke. “Bring me the Lady Vella.”
*
Justinian quickly dressed so that Klaude would suspect nothing upon seeing him.
He spotted her instantly, her red hair glowing beneath a full moon; she scurried into his arms, and he wordlessly picked her up and brought her to his bed at the inn. They lay together in silence, the whole night a wild blur, unforgettable and yet already forgotten.
Klaude had thrust the snake and what it had done to her from her mind. She wrapped her arms around Justinian’s neck. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
“I am too tired for bed sport, tonight, my love.”
She laughed impatiently. “I said kiss me. Do you not want to?”
“I do, but I fear that should I, I would not be able to control myself…”
“Then do not.”
They did kiss, several times, but with their secrets still so heavy on their hearts, they could do no more and turned away. Klaude wept to herself silently, so silently that Justinian dismissed it, thinking it nothing.
*
My lord, Warren read the first two words of another letter from Aranea. I have never once been so nervous, so filled with grief, in my life. You have not written me in some time, and I fear that I have lost your love. He frowned. No, Aranea could never lose his love – but he could never risk losing Kylani’s. Her love could make him, but her envy and spite could surely break him.
Whether it is there or not, however, it once was – and this the world will know, for I am with child. He flushed, his heart skipping a beat; he held the letter to his chest. Perhaps it was not his… It is your child. No! This is undoubtedly so, my lord. I was a virgin when you made love to me, and have not known a man’s caress since you left me.
“Oh, God save me!” Warren gasped.
I have remained in confinement for some weeks, on pretense of a fever. But fevers do not last forever. They either kill you or make you stronger. Was she suggesting taking her life? But how could he live without her… I leave it up to your discretion and humanity to decide the outcome of this ‘fever’ for me. Write soon, or I shall take my fate into my own hands. –A
He needed some time to think, lots of time, and yet fate would give him none. Kylani burst into his chamber at that very moment, and he tossed the letter into the fire and rose from his seat. “Majesty.”
“Oh, my loving lord!” the young queen squealed, throwing herself into his arms. “I have the most glorious of news, Warren!”
He feigned a smile. “What, milady?”
“I am with child,” she whispered. “Your child.”
*
Aurella and Zelda had eventually returned to the cottage, both tired and with aching heads. They had drunk into the wee hours of the night, giving up their search for the princess.
“So,” Etsuko said, sitting up in their bed, “is it done?”
Neither of her sisters responded; they collapsed in the grand bed, and Etsuko knew it was not. Nothing had been done, and yet for the first time in her tumultuous, loveless life, her world felt right – no – perfect.
For the first time, she had known the body of a man she had loved, and it was a glorious feeling.
“We will just drop it then,” Etsuko whispered to herself. “The princess is a good soul, undeserving of death.”
*
“My lord.” Nene gently removed Eric’s arms from round her body, and rose from the bed. She threw her hooded riding cloak over the simple lawn chemise Klaude had spared her, and stumbled sleepily down the stairs for a drink.
Kenneth saw her at once, and dismissed his workers who were preparing various wines with him. “Good morrow, Princess. I have longed to see you.”
“Some wine,” Nene said, shortly. “Some bottles of it, actually, and some bread, apples, and soy puddings, as well, Kenneth.”
“My lady has the stomach of a lion,” he noted, teasingly. “But, Princess, there is something I must say.” Solemnly, he reached for her hand.
“What?”
“Marry me,” Kenneth whispered, smiling warmly into her cold blue eyes.
Nene laughed and turned away from him. “Five large bottles and plenty of the food for my party – prepare this quickly, for we will be leaving soon.”
“What…? Nene? You are leaving?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am thankful for your hospitality, but it must be so.”
“Hospitality?” he shrieked. “I picked you up and helped you when you were nothing!” Kenneth paused, and looked pleadingly into her eyes. “Nene – reconsider this madness of leaving me. Stay here and marry me and we can settle down and be happy. I beg of you. Don’t break my heart like this…”
Neither noticed that Reina had come down the stairs, only to stop at Kenneth’s yelling.
“I was never nothing,” Nene said, returning his loving gaze with a glacial glare. “And perhaps some foolish country girl never meant to be anything would marry you, but I am a princess, the daughter of my mother and father through and through.”
“Who are you leaving with?” he asked, in a small voice.
“The Lord Eric and his noble party.” She smiled and laughed. “Oh, he is taken with me. He had me this very night. And as the father of King Ardin’s heir, he is a proper groom for a princess.”
Kenneth frowned and turned away from her. “I’ll have everything you have asked readied for you, Princess.”
“Good.”
“But may I say that this is just like you – to turn away an honest man like me for a lusty rogue who could give you status?” He paused. “Or do you just pursue him for good bed sport?”
*
Eric was soon up and preparing the carriage. He checked each of the wooden wheels, and made sure each horse was properly secured.
“Eric…” He heard Reina’s voice; it was so unlike her, though – soft, meek, demure…
“My lady.” Eric turned and drew her hand to kiss.
“My lord, why is she coming with us?” Her gentle tone vanished, and in its stead was a fierce, severe one that made Eric step back.
“The Princess Nene?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Reina, she has nowhere else to go – everything has been taken from her, for God’s Sake.”
“She has many places to go, like to the capital to seek help from His Majesty King Ardin, or… or Hell or –”
“Reina!” Eric hissed. “She is a princess – do not speak of her so!”
“She could be God and I would hate her so, for she was in your bed last night!” Reina cried. “I hope you know that she is a whore who would part her legs for a crumb of copper! I hope you know that she is all but using you!” She paused, turning away so he would not see that she was crying. “Leave her here so that she may marry that innkeeper… unless… unless you want her for yourself…?”
Eric’s face flushed; even Reina could see that she had pushed too far. He looked torn, ready to burst. But instead, he remained calm. “Reina, love, you know how I feel for you.”
She looked at him again, her eyes glistening with joy and tears. She turned and looked all around them, as though to confirm that they were alone. “Then run away with me, this second. Let us forget our duties to Myuri and marry and –”
“No, Reina, not this again. Not this about marriage, again.”
“Eric, my love – I am not like her, I am not just some mare you can ride again and again for pleasure! Marry me or forget me!”
“No, Reina,” he said, with a groan of remorse like that of a boy’s. “I… I can’t marry you. I’m sorry for it.”
Reina bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes; she took a deep breath, and all the sadness vanished from her face. There was just anger. “You fully knew this from the start, didn’t you? You knew you would not marry me, and yet you took my maidenhead.” She could no longer contain herself – she lifted her hand and hit his pretty cheek. It flashed red and his head turned the other way.
“I could have been Queen! I could have had a fine husband who adored me!” Reina cried. “But I ran away with you!”
Eric held his face, ripped with pain. But he would not cry out, no, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “I didn’t ask you to come with me,” he said, through gritted teeth.
He saw the hurt, the defeat in her face; she looked as though in more pain than he was. And then Reina shook her head, and turned and ran from him.
“My lord.” Nene appeared, stepping out wryly from behind the trunk of a tree and stroking his cheek as though the touch of her hand could make the sting cease. “My lord, I…”
“She did not mean any of that, Nene, though I apologize that you had to hear it.” Eric touched her hair, gold in the sunlight. “Nene…”
“Eric.” She swallowed and closed her eyes; feigned tears slithered down rosy cheeks. “I heed you know this, my lord: I am no whore. Last night I gave you my maidenhead.”
Eric frowned. Remembering how deftly she had given him her body the night before, this was difficult to believe.
“Hear me,” she continued, her hand daringly finding its way to his crotch. “I am no whore, but to you, I will be and do as you so wish.”
*
“Majesty, we will find the quickest courier in Myuri to deliver this letter to the Crezia Inn,” the page Owain said, as he bowed and left Ardin. “And the Lady Vella should arrive at your receiving rooms within minutes.”
“No,” Ardin said. “Not my receiving rooms. Bring her here.”
“As you wish, Majesty.”
And so Vella, who had just finished pinning her honey-curls back into a hood when she had been sent for, was brought to the king’s bedchamber. She sat down stiffly on a cushioned chair at the king’s bedside, while servants fed a fire and gathered a bottle of wine and two chalices; then they filed out leaving the two alone.
“My lord…” Vella said, awkwardly, for, beside her, her sovereign lay in just his breeches, most of his skin was plain to see.
Ardin sat up, and turned to her, taking one of her hands and squeezing it tightly in his. “Vella, I will be leaving soon.”
“Where to?” She wished only to tear her hand from his and leave. Surely he would not dare to have her, just because her husband was at seas doing his bidding?
“The Mountain of Amour, Vella,” Ardin replied.
“My lord, I mean no disrespect, but at a time such as this, when your nation is plagued with civil war, you cannot just leave. You must at least name a capable regent, and your ward and heir, the princess, is but months old.”
“I am disinheriting her,” he said, coolly.
“Then who will be your heir? And your regent? And…” she paused. “Why the Mount Amour?” But Vella knew the answer. It was common knowledge that the king had fallen irrevocably in love with his father’s to-be-bride, and some swore Ardin had murdered the King David.
“I am young,” Ardin said. “I could easily impregnate any maid of my choosing.”
“Then you should like to take a queen, Majesty?” Vella asked.
She watched his face darken. “I needn’t tell you everything, Lady Vella. I needn’t tell you anything at all. You are here for but one reason, and that is to conceive my child.”
“What…?” There had been times before when Ardin had come to her bed, but he was always sheathed. He’d never wanted a child from her – what kind of a young man would, really? – but had her for pleasure. “Majesty, I am now to wed Lord Thomas, when he returns from the coast where he is stationed to fend off pirates. He may remain there for some time…” Our troth is not consummated – Thomas would know the babe is not his, she thought to herself.
“Don’t question me!” Ardin cried, and suddenly, flying into a rage, he grabbed Vella’s prim little body and threw her beneath him as though she were light as feathers.
“My lord,” she whispered, pleadingly, her dainty little hands flying to his huge shoulders. But he looked into her face as though he did not understand, as though he were some wild animal. “I beg of you!”
One hand covered her mouth, another tore the front of her bodice in two and pulled up her skirts. He unlaced his own breeches, and entered her in a series of merciless thrusts. He held her down, forced her down, and his mouth messily pressed against hers in sloppy, loveless kisses.
Finally he rolled off of her and onto his side, his chest heaving. “Go now,” he said, not even looking at her.
Vella rose from the bed, slowly, gingerly. Her privates were so sore that she could barely stand, let alone walk. She pulled her skirts down to the floor, fixed her shift; but the bodice of her dress was torn. Seeing this, Ardin tossed her one of his riding capes hanging on a chair.
She wrapped it around her body, and her clumsy fingers laced the front.
“Wait.” Ardin rose from his bed, scrambling to a dresser and digging through its drawers. He pulled out a rich mask of plated silver with elegant gold folds, and placed it over her eyes from behind.
“I give this to you,” he whispered breathlessly into her neck, “to hide our secret. And also, because it suits you well.”
She tore away from him, and Ardin watched her leave with Reina’s mask over her eyes.
.
Vella found the king’s page and a messenger at the drawbridge of the palace gates.
The messenger held the package containing the king’s letter under one arm, and a purse of moneys in the other.
“Wait,” she said, picking up her tattered skirts and hurrying over as he mounted an awkward pony. She slipped the mask from her face into her hand, her fingers caressing the cool, fine metal, and the rich pearl seeds of the North. “Here.”
The messenger awkwardly took the mask, and looked down on her. “What is this, Milady?”
“Something of the Lady Reina’s.” Vella frowned. “It is the king’s wish that it be sent.”
“Very well then.”
She watched the messenger leave, and then returned to her own rooms and threw herself onto the bed.
*
“I was wrong,” Kylani mumbled, as she mounted her great stallion at the head of Espiarus’ army. Their next campaign would run through Eurandala and then the remaining strip of towns to Congrella’s capital.
“What?” Warren asked, distantly, as he climbed onto his own great black charger. His mind was racing with every abortive seed known to man, and how to obtain and ship them to Aranea.
“I am not with child,” she whispered, ruefully.
At once, Warren was alert. “What would it have mattered, if you were? Since you are insistent on our marriage’s delay?”
Kylani turned and faced him, throwing back her long, plain brown hair. “Don’t speak to me so!” she reproved, before her army and court, and then leaned in to whisper, “You will be what I make you.”
“And if not husband, then what?”
“How about I marry you off to Aranea? God knows you’d like that.” Her eyes burned with hate, and yet her heart was thudding with a heated passion.
“I should prefer to spend an eternity before you on bended knee.”
She reached for and squeezed his hand. “My bed,” she breathed, “tonight.”
*
Eric drove the carriage with Justinian, and Nene rode in the back practicing her embroidery after material had been purchased at a market they had passed. Klaude and Reina rode two mares at the front, like a queen and her lady-in-waiting.
“The satin and lace you purchased were of excellent quality,” Klaude said, leaning over the strong neck of her horse. The sun was setting on another long day of travel, and riding had become awkward upon Nene’s joining their party.
She was a princess by right, and Reina was a princess by her own desire; of course it was awkward.
When Reina did not reply, Klaude reached for her hand and held it gently in her own. “What is wrong?” she whispered, intimately.
Reina still did not speak.
“Let us stop,” Eric said. “Since there is a stream.”
A small camp was set up; wine and bread and various nuts and puddings were gathered, a fire was lit. Reina gathered some towels and a change of dress and a dagger.
“I’m going to the stream to bathe.” She turned to Eric, throwing him a vindictive glare that no one missed.
“I’ll come with,” Klaude said, awkwardly. “Just a minute to gather my things.” She rose and entered the carriage, Justinian following.
“Klaude,” he said, softly. “You’re so cold to me, these days.”
“I don’t try to be.” She frowned and did not look at him, for when she did, she saw Etsuko’s snake and remembered its ugly prophecy.
“But you are.” He paused, reaching out and lightly touching her cheek. “Klaude, do you still love me?”
“Why should I have stopped?”
Justinian looked at her and saw that her face was wet and hot with tears. He kissed each drop away and then took her mouth in his. “My love.”
She cried more vigorously, and he held her in his arms. “You haven’t been the same, since that night at the Lucidele, when you were briefly kidnapped.”
“It’s nothing…” she whispered, feebly, though he could barely hear her between sobs.
“It is everything, and I am going to find out what it is.”
Klaude rose and pushed away from him, holding towels and a dress to her chest. She left him in the dark.
He sat, thinking in silence, before drawing paper and pen and candle.
Etsuko Heiji,
You have done something to Klaude, whom you swore you would not hurt. I cannot imagine what, and I so humbly beg you to recall it.
Justinian
*
Klaude found Reina at the stream, washing by the light of an oil lantern. She stripped her own dress of filmy gray linen and set it about a stone with her towels and change, then stepped into the cool waters, taking some soap and rubbing it about her skin.
“You’re crying,” Reina noted, looking at Klaude, apologetically.
“You are too.” Klaude frowned. “Why?”
Reina held her face in her hands. “He doesn’t love me. He never did.”
“Reina…”
“I’m such a fool,” she pined, miserably. Reina swept tears from her eyes with her arm. “I wish to return to the capital, and marry the king.”
“You can’t,” Klaude said, simply but sympathetically. “There is no turning back.”
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
A/N: I’ve edited some of the chapters early as Chapter 1 at the beginning. I have decided to include the silver and gold mask you will read about, for a twist in the ending. See my updates underDecember 16th, 2011 for a complete list of what was edited and where. Thank you and enjoy!
Chapter 8- Nostalgia
A snake slithered in through the cottage window, and its mistress reached out a pale hand of long, slender fingers; it submissively slithered from hand to arm to shoulder.
“He is coming to the woods, milady. Ready yourself,” it said.
Klaude had been allowed to sit by the fireplace, while she was to be Etsuko’s prisoner. “Who?”
“Your lover Justinian,” Etsuko said, heartlessly. “I bid him come to me, if he wishes to see you again.”
Klaude stood, only to throw herself onto her knees once more. “I call back my words – hurt me as you see fit, but not him! I heed you take my life now; it would be worthless should you take his.”
The witch was quiet for a bit, stopping at the door to turn and face the girl kneeling before her. “Would you die for him, child? I think you are all talk.”
“I would kill myself if you were to hurt him,” Klaude whimpered.
“Save your words, I’m without need of them. I will not hurt him or you.”
“I thank you for your mercy.”
“I am merciful, aren’t I?” Etsuko laughed like a madwoman, briefly. And then her jaw hardened and she drowned once more. “But I hate you still.”
“You don’t even know me,” Klaude gasped. “And I don’t, you.”
“I know enough about you to despise you. The only man I have ever been wholesomely taken with is yours.”
“Please –”
“You deserve punishment,” Etsuko said, vindictively.
“You said you would not hurt me, nor him!”
“I will not,” the witch replied, with a shrug. She petted her snake and then tossed it from her shoulders to the floor. “My dear snake, Curse, will punish you as he sees fit.”
*
Reina lay in her bed uneasily; she could not sleep, not with an image of Eric with his arm wrapped round that slut’s waist on her mind.
He was intoxicated, surely, and hadn’t meant what he said. The girl would soon be gone and forgotten, and he would come back to her. She would forgive him for his mistake, and he would marry her.
But still Reina could not sleep, and so she rose from her bed and stood before a long, rich looking glass. She was much, much prettier than that whore, wasn’t she? She stripped her nightdress so that her long, velvety black hair cloaked her body, tumbled down a grand pair of breasts to her waist. Her skin was white and smooth.
Who could resist her? Not Eric! Reina frowned, for a question she had never once thought to ask herself struck her: What did he want from her? Did he want her body? Her face? Her mind, her wit? And, whatever it was, would he want it forever?
*
“Should you feed the fire?” Klaude asked the serpent, quite boldly. Her hands reached to the fire for warmth that did not come.
It slithered to her from the cottage’s floor. “I should feed you to it.”
She frowned. “What does your mistress wish to do to me? Keep me here forever?”
“No, not long at all,” the snake replied.
“Why does she detest me so? She does not know me.”
“Because she is in love with your betrothed, foolish child!” it cried, spitefully.
A great anger suddenly welled in Klaude’s heart. “In love? She does not even know him!”
“You are a fool to speak against my mistress when you are at her mercy!” At that, the creature suddenly flung itself at Klaude, wrapping round her body. She sucked as much air as she possibly could, then closed her eyes and waited for death to suffocate her.
But then, the snake left her body and rested before her.
“So, Klaude – would you die for this man whom my mistress pursues?”
She frowned. “Why that question of which you should already know the answer? Yes… of course.” A faint smile spread across her lips. “His love is the air I breathe. His love is what keeps me alive.”
“And a lack of it will be what kills you.”
Suddenly, a rush of what was undoubtedly magic surged through Klaude’s body, and she knew that the serpent’s unwelcome embrace had had some effect on her. “W-What have you done?” she shrieked.
“I have bestowed upon you a great prophesy,” its sharp little tongue flung spit at her. “Twelve moons from this night, you will surely die, lest your true love kiss your mouth. And, should he do so, then he should die.”
“The very nerve of you to lie to me, like this,” Klaude spat.
“But I do not lie.”
She looked into the wicked face of the beast, and knew it spoke the truth. The world around her was spinning, and then it turned black.
.
In the dark of the woods, Justinian could see a figure. “Klaude?”
He came closer, and recognized the woman from the tavern. She stood before him naked, her dress and cloak shed at her feet, hair long and red like Klaude’s forming a cape along her back. “My lord,” she breathed.
For a moment, Justinian was tempted to reach out and touch her; he almost stiffened. The world around him gave way to a lush dream of sensuality, but then he remembered why he had come. “Who are you?” He took another look at her; she looked far from human. “What are you?”
She smiled sweetly. “I am Etsuko Heiji and I,” she reached for him, two slender hands wrapping around his neck, “I am yours.”
He pushed her back. “Where is Klaude?”
“Dead!” Etsuko swore. At his reaction, she sighed sympathetically. “Well, she could be if I willed it.”
Justinian frantically reached for her shoulders and shook them. “Please,” he said, “return her to me. I-I would do everything, anything.”
She brought his hand to a perfectly round breast, squeezing and sighing. “You need only do one.”
He tried to withdraw his hand, but she held it tightly. “What?” Justinian asked.
She smiled and circled him, covering him with her hands and licking at his skin like a wanton cat. “Make love to me,” Etsuko said, breathlessly.
“W-What!” Justinian gasped, violently shoving her away; he feared that if he did not, he would be sucked in to her desires, surrender himself to a woman who was not Klaude. “I will not, could not…”
“I need only utter the words, and she will be dead.” She threw him a malicious smile. “But I don’t need to.”
He turned away and thought; he took another look at her. Much to her advantage, the moon shone full upon her; she stood before him a goddess, the stars wrapping round her like a frame against a beautiful painting. In that moment, his loins told him that he was in love, though his heart yearned only for Klaude. “Fine.”
At that one word, Etsuko crossed what was the small distance between them. She forced his lightly armored suit to the ground, and felt his skin, forcing hers against it. Her hands found and encouraged his cock, leading him to a bed of the first leaves of fall. She parted her legs, and he followed suit; she opened her mouth and pushed against his neck, forcing his tongue to enter.
In spite of himself, Justinian found himself delighting in her maze-of-a-body. Intercourse with her was so different from the familiar rhythm of doing so with Klaude, who was sweet and demure and easy in bed like she always was. But to make love to Etsuko was like courting fire; she did not moan or cry out like a helpless little girl. She was strong as he was, pushed hard as he did; she forced his body to become engaged. He dared to try for a groan from her lips.
At last, she pushed him away, and then brought herself back to him, easing one of his great, muscular arms around her body. “My lord, was that so terrible?”
“No…”
“But you still favor her, don’t you?” Etsuko said, frowning and turning away. “Still favor her, though she is just a plain little girl, and I am a beautifully irresistible sorceress?”
“Of course I do,” he said, unsympathetically.
Etsuko faced him once again, and Justinian could not even recognize her. Before him stood a woman ancient in appearance, her face ravaged with scars, her hair worn white tresses.
“This is the real me,” that same seductive voice whispered. “I could never blame you for not loving such filth.”
“Do not blame me, nor yourself.” He touched her cheek affectionately, and watched her face light up like a girl’s. “I think you are beautiful, even in this state, but I am deeply, truly in love with another, and not even a lovely sorceress like yourself could change this.”
“Stand my friend,” she breathed. “Stand my friend though we are of different factions.” She paused, and Justinian saw in her face all that she was aware of – Mount Ascendon, everything… “Keep me in your heart.”
“Always,” he said. “I am honored to possess the love of so great a woman.”
They rose and Etsuko embraced him, her tears soaking the skin of his firm chest. She pulled away and smiled ruefully. “Then I will go and get Klaude.”
*
Why should the daughter of so wicked a knave be my heir? Ardin thought to himself, pacing about his chamber. She should not be – that is the answer!
“And yet I could die,” he whispered to himself, turning on his side in bed. He had seldom left his bed in the past week, mourning the loss of his infamous love. “If I travel to the Mount Amour and do not return…”
His favorite page brought his breakfast tray: Wine, broth, bread cakes, and strawberries. “Anything else, Majesty?”
“Some writing tools, Owain,” Ardin ordered, imperiously. “And I would like the princess dispatched to Willow House with her staff of maids.”
Owain bowed his head. “As you wish, Majesty. I shall speak to your ward’s, the Princess Dele’s, chamberlain and order a coach readied.” He paused before leaving. “Should you like to see Her Grace?”
“No, and don’t call her that. I shall disinherit her and see to it that she is nothing, very soon.”
The boy frowned, but bowed and left. As all kings did, especially an intemperate man who was not yet twenty-two, when Ardin changed his mind, he changed it quickly.
The writing tools were brought to the king, and he wrote a letter to the next inn along Eric’s path, following the Lucidele – Crezia.
He addressed it to Reina, whose face was what had driven him to assassinate his own ever-loving father. Old men are not meant to be lovers, he had thought to himself, and yet he had been spurned by heartless Reina, as well. Perhaps the only man for her would always be that dark gypsy, Eric.
Ardin lay still, his head against pillows stuffed with rose petals. Around him, grooms and pages and gentlemen of the privy were gathered, trying to read his mind. But his faced betrayed none of the emotions rushing through him.
Finally, he spoke. “Bring me the Lady Vella.”
*
Justinian quickly dressed so that Klaude would suspect nothing upon seeing him.
He spotted her instantly, her red hair glowing beneath a full moon; she scurried into his arms, and he wordlessly picked her up and brought her to his bed at the inn. They lay together in silence, the whole night a wild blur, unforgettable and yet already forgotten.
Klaude had thrust the snake and what it had done to her from her mind. She wrapped her arms around Justinian’s neck. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
“I am too tired for bed sport, tonight, my love.”
She laughed impatiently. “I said kiss me. Do you not want to?”
“I do, but I fear that should I, I would not be able to control myself…”
“Then do not.”
They did kiss, several times, but with their secrets still so heavy on their hearts, they could do no more and turned away. Klaude wept to herself silently, so silently that Justinian dismissed it, thinking it nothing.
*
My lord, Warren read the first two words of another letter from Aranea. I have never once been so nervous, so filled with grief, in my life. You have not written me in some time, and I fear that I have lost your love. He frowned. No, Aranea could never lose his love – but he could never risk losing Kylani’s. Her love could make him, but her envy and spite could surely break him.
Whether it is there or not, however, it once was – and this the world will know, for I am with child. He flushed, his heart skipping a beat; he held the letter to his chest. Perhaps it was not his… It is your child. No! This is undoubtedly so, my lord. I was a virgin when you made love to me, and have not known a man’s caress since you left me.
“Oh, God save me!” Warren gasped.
I have remained in confinement for some weeks, on pretense of a fever. But fevers do not last forever. They either kill you or make you stronger. Was she suggesting taking her life? But how could he live without her… I leave it up to your discretion and humanity to decide the outcome of this ‘fever’ for me. Write soon, or I shall take my fate into my own hands. –A
He needed some time to think, lots of time, and yet fate would give him none. Kylani burst into his chamber at that very moment, and he tossed the letter into the fire and rose from his seat. “Majesty.”
“Oh, my loving lord!” the young queen squealed, throwing herself into his arms. “I have the most glorious of news, Warren!”
He feigned a smile. “What, milady?”
“I am with child,” she whispered. “Your child.”
*
Aurella and Zelda had eventually returned to the cottage, both tired and with aching heads. They had drunk into the wee hours of the night, giving up their search for the princess.
“So,” Etsuko said, sitting up in their bed, “is it done?”
Neither of her sisters responded; they collapsed in the grand bed, and Etsuko knew it was not. Nothing had been done, and yet for the first time in her tumultuous, loveless life, her world felt right – no – perfect.
For the first time, she had known the body of a man she had loved, and it was a glorious feeling.
“We will just drop it then,” Etsuko whispered to herself. “The princess is a good soul, undeserving of death.”
*
“My lord.” Nene gently removed Eric’s arms from round her body, and rose from the bed. She threw her hooded riding cloak over the simple lawn chemise Klaude had spared her, and stumbled sleepily down the stairs for a drink.
Kenneth saw her at once, and dismissed his workers who were preparing various wines with him. “Good morrow, Princess. I have longed to see you.”
“Some wine,” Nene said, shortly. “Some bottles of it, actually, and some bread, apples, and soy puddings, as well, Kenneth.”
“My lady has the stomach of a lion,” he noted, teasingly. “But, Princess, there is something I must say.” Solemnly, he reached for her hand.
“What?”
“Marry me,” Kenneth whispered, smiling warmly into her cold blue eyes.
Nene laughed and turned away from him. “Five large bottles and plenty of the food for my party – prepare this quickly, for we will be leaving soon.”
“What…? Nene? You are leaving?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am thankful for your hospitality, but it must be so.”
“Hospitality?” he shrieked. “I picked you up and helped you when you were nothing!” Kenneth paused, and looked pleadingly into her eyes. “Nene – reconsider this madness of leaving me. Stay here and marry me and we can settle down and be happy. I beg of you. Don’t break my heart like this…”
Neither noticed that Reina had come down the stairs, only to stop at Kenneth’s yelling.
“I was never nothing,” Nene said, returning his loving gaze with a glacial glare. “And perhaps some foolish country girl never meant to be anything would marry you, but I am a princess, the daughter of my mother and father through and through.”
“Who are you leaving with?” he asked, in a small voice.
“The Lord Eric and his noble party.” She smiled and laughed. “Oh, he is taken with me. He had me this very night. And as the father of King Ardin’s heir, he is a proper groom for a princess.”
Kenneth frowned and turned away from her. “I’ll have everything you have asked readied for you, Princess.”
“Good.”
“But may I say that this is just like you – to turn away an honest man like me for a lusty rogue who could give you status?” He paused. “Or do you just pursue him for good bed sport?”
*
Eric was soon up and preparing the carriage. He checked each of the wooden wheels, and made sure each horse was properly secured.
“Eric…” He heard Reina’s voice; it was so unlike her, though – soft, meek, demure…
“My lady.” Eric turned and drew her hand to kiss.
“My lord, why is she coming with us?” Her gentle tone vanished, and in its stead was a fierce, severe one that made Eric step back.
“The Princess Nene?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Reina, she has nowhere else to go – everything has been taken from her, for God’s Sake.”
“She has many places to go, like to the capital to seek help from His Majesty King Ardin, or… or Hell or –”
“Reina!” Eric hissed. “She is a princess – do not speak of her so!”
“She could be God and I would hate her so, for she was in your bed last night!” Reina cried. “I hope you know that she is a whore who would part her legs for a crumb of copper! I hope you know that she is all but using you!” She paused, turning away so he would not see that she was crying. “Leave her here so that she may marry that innkeeper… unless… unless you want her for yourself…?”
Eric’s face flushed; even Reina could see that she had pushed too far. He looked torn, ready to burst. But instead, he remained calm. “Reina, love, you know how I feel for you.”
She looked at him again, her eyes glistening with joy and tears. She turned and looked all around them, as though to confirm that they were alone. “Then run away with me, this second. Let us forget our duties to Myuri and marry and –”
“No, Reina, not this again. Not this about marriage, again.”
“Eric, my love – I am not like her, I am not just some mare you can ride again and again for pleasure! Marry me or forget me!”
“No, Reina,” he said, with a groan of remorse like that of a boy’s. “I… I can’t marry you. I’m sorry for it.”
Reina bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes; she took a deep breath, and all the sadness vanished from her face. There was just anger. “You fully knew this from the start, didn’t you? You knew you would not marry me, and yet you took my maidenhead.” She could no longer contain herself – she lifted her hand and hit his pretty cheek. It flashed red and his head turned the other way.
“I could have been Queen! I could have had a fine husband who adored me!” Reina cried. “But I ran away with you!”
Eric held his face, ripped with pain. But he would not cry out, no, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “I didn’t ask you to come with me,” he said, through gritted teeth.
He saw the hurt, the defeat in her face; she looked as though in more pain than he was. And then Reina shook her head, and turned and ran from him.
“My lord.” Nene appeared, stepping out wryly from behind the trunk of a tree and stroking his cheek as though the touch of her hand could make the sting cease. “My lord, I…”
“She did not mean any of that, Nene, though I apologize that you had to hear it.” Eric touched her hair, gold in the sunlight. “Nene…”
“Eric.” She swallowed and closed her eyes; feigned tears slithered down rosy cheeks. “I heed you know this, my lord: I am no whore. Last night I gave you my maidenhead.”
Eric frowned. Remembering how deftly she had given him her body the night before, this was difficult to believe.
“Hear me,” she continued, her hand daringly finding its way to his crotch. “I am no whore, but to you, I will be and do as you so wish.”
*
“Majesty, we will find the quickest courier in Myuri to deliver this letter to the Crezia Inn,” the page Owain said, as he bowed and left Ardin. “And the Lady Vella should arrive at your receiving rooms within minutes.”
“No,” Ardin said. “Not my receiving rooms. Bring her here.”
“As you wish, Majesty.”
And so Vella, who had just finished pinning her honey-curls back into a hood when she had been sent for, was brought to the king’s bedchamber. She sat down stiffly on a cushioned chair at the king’s bedside, while servants fed a fire and gathered a bottle of wine and two chalices; then they filed out leaving the two alone.
“My lord…” Vella said, awkwardly, for, beside her, her sovereign lay in just his breeches, most of his skin was plain to see.
Ardin sat up, and turned to her, taking one of her hands and squeezing it tightly in his. “Vella, I will be leaving soon.”
“Where to?” She wished only to tear her hand from his and leave. Surely he would not dare to have her, just because her husband was at seas doing his bidding?
“The Mountain of Amour, Vella,” Ardin replied.
“My lord, I mean no disrespect, but at a time such as this, when your nation is plagued with civil war, you cannot just leave. You must at least name a capable regent, and your ward and heir, the princess, is but months old.”
“I am disinheriting her,” he said, coolly.
“Then who will be your heir? And your regent? And…” she paused. “Why the Mount Amour?” But Vella knew the answer. It was common knowledge that the king had fallen irrevocably in love with his father’s to-be-bride, and some swore Ardin had murdered the King David.
“I am young,” Ardin said. “I could easily impregnate any maid of my choosing.”
“Then you should like to take a queen, Majesty?” Vella asked.
She watched his face darken. “I needn’t tell you everything, Lady Vella. I needn’t tell you anything at all. You are here for but one reason, and that is to conceive my child.”
“What…?” There had been times before when Ardin had come to her bed, but he was always sheathed. He’d never wanted a child from her – what kind of a young man would, really? – but had her for pleasure. “Majesty, I am now to wed Lord Thomas, when he returns from the coast where he is stationed to fend off pirates. He may remain there for some time…” Our troth is not consummated – Thomas would know the babe is not his, she thought to herself.
“Don’t question me!” Ardin cried, and suddenly, flying into a rage, he grabbed Vella’s prim little body and threw her beneath him as though she were light as feathers.
“My lord,” she whispered, pleadingly, her dainty little hands flying to his huge shoulders. But he looked into her face as though he did not understand, as though he were some wild animal. “I beg of you!”
One hand covered her mouth, another tore the front of her bodice in two and pulled up her skirts. He unlaced his own breeches, and entered her in a series of merciless thrusts. He held her down, forced her down, and his mouth messily pressed against hers in sloppy, loveless kisses.
Finally he rolled off of her and onto his side, his chest heaving. “Go now,” he said, not even looking at her.
Vella rose from the bed, slowly, gingerly. Her privates were so sore that she could barely stand, let alone walk. She pulled her skirts down to the floor, fixed her shift; but the bodice of her dress was torn. Seeing this, Ardin tossed her one of his riding capes hanging on a chair.
She wrapped it around her body, and her clumsy fingers laced the front.
“Wait.” Ardin rose from his bed, scrambling to a dresser and digging through its drawers. He pulled out a rich mask of plated silver with elegant gold folds, and placed it over her eyes from behind.
“I give this to you,” he whispered breathlessly into her neck, “to hide our secret. And also, because it suits you well.”
She tore away from him, and Ardin watched her leave with Reina’s mask over her eyes.
.
Vella found the king’s page and a messenger at the drawbridge of the palace gates.
The messenger held the package containing the king’s letter under one arm, and a purse of moneys in the other.
“Wait,” she said, picking up her tattered skirts and hurrying over as he mounted an awkward pony. She slipped the mask from her face into her hand, her fingers caressing the cool, fine metal, and the rich pearl seeds of the North. “Here.”
The messenger awkwardly took the mask, and looked down on her. “What is this, Milady?”
“Something of the Lady Reina’s.” Vella frowned. “It is the king’s wish that it be sent.”
“Very well then.”
She watched the messenger leave, and then returned to her own rooms and threw herself onto the bed.
*
“I was wrong,” Kylani mumbled, as she mounted her great stallion at the head of Espiarus’ army. Their next campaign would run through Eurandala and then the remaining strip of towns to Congrella’s capital.
“What?” Warren asked, distantly, as he climbed onto his own great black charger. His mind was racing with every abortive seed known to man, and how to obtain and ship them to Aranea.
“I am not with child,” she whispered, ruefully.
At once, Warren was alert. “What would it have mattered, if you were? Since you are insistent on our marriage’s delay?”
Kylani turned and faced him, throwing back her long, plain brown hair. “Don’t speak to me so!” she reproved, before her army and court, and then leaned in to whisper, “You will be what I make you.”
“And if not husband, then what?”
“How about I marry you off to Aranea? God knows you’d like that.” Her eyes burned with hate, and yet her heart was thudding with a heated passion.
“I should prefer to spend an eternity before you on bended knee.”
She reached for and squeezed his hand. “My bed,” she breathed, “tonight.”
*
Eric drove the carriage with Justinian, and Nene rode in the back practicing her embroidery after material had been purchased at a market they had passed. Klaude and Reina rode two mares at the front, like a queen and her lady-in-waiting.
“The satin and lace you purchased were of excellent quality,” Klaude said, leaning over the strong neck of her horse. The sun was setting on another long day of travel, and riding had become awkward upon Nene’s joining their party.
She was a princess by right, and Reina was a princess by her own desire; of course it was awkward.
When Reina did not reply, Klaude reached for her hand and held it gently in her own. “What is wrong?” she whispered, intimately.
Reina still did not speak.
“Let us stop,” Eric said. “Since there is a stream.”
A small camp was set up; wine and bread and various nuts and puddings were gathered, a fire was lit. Reina gathered some towels and a change of dress and a dagger.
“I’m going to the stream to bathe.” She turned to Eric, throwing him a vindictive glare that no one missed.
“I’ll come with,” Klaude said, awkwardly. “Just a minute to gather my things.” She rose and entered the carriage, Justinian following.
“Klaude,” he said, softly. “You’re so cold to me, these days.”
“I don’t try to be.” She frowned and did not look at him, for when she did, she saw Etsuko’s snake and remembered its ugly prophecy.
“But you are.” He paused, reaching out and lightly touching her cheek. “Klaude, do you still love me?”
“Why should I have stopped?”
Justinian looked at her and saw that her face was wet and hot with tears. He kissed each drop away and then took her mouth in his. “My love.”
She cried more vigorously, and he held her in his arms. “You haven’t been the same, since that night at the Lucidele, when you were briefly kidnapped.”
“It’s nothing…” she whispered, feebly, though he could barely hear her between sobs.
“It is everything, and I am going to find out what it is.”
Klaude rose and pushed away from him, holding towels and a dress to her chest. She left him in the dark.
He sat, thinking in silence, before drawing paper and pen and candle.
Etsuko Heiji,
You have done something to Klaude, whom you swore you would not hurt. I cannot imagine what, and I so humbly beg you to recall it.
Justinian
*
Klaude found Reina at the stream, washing by the light of an oil lantern. She stripped her own dress of filmy gray linen and set it about a stone with her towels and change, then stepped into the cool waters, taking some soap and rubbing it about her skin.
“You’re crying,” Reina noted, looking at Klaude, apologetically.
“You are too.” Klaude frowned. “Why?”
Reina held her face in her hands. “He doesn’t love me. He never did.”
“Reina…”
“I’m such a fool,” she pined, miserably. Reina swept tears from her eyes with her arm. “I wish to return to the capital, and marry the king.”
“You can’t,” Klaude said, simply but sympathetically. “There is no turning back.”
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
A month had elapsed. Kylani led her army, which drew nearer to Ra Fay’s capital each day. She pulled up beside Warren, who was leaning over his horse and drinking from a flask of ale.
“You seem so very happy, these days,” she said, sweetly.
“I am,” Warren replied. He smiled.
“Why ever?”
“Because I have a beautiful, beautiful lover,” Warren said, dreamily.
Kylani blushed, for she did not know that Warren wasn’t speaking of her.
The sun was beginning to set; she shielded her eyes. “We will soon stop and set up camp for the night.” She paused. “Will you come to my bed, tonight?”
Warren looked at the queen, and thought of Aranea. He began to shake his head in silent rejection, but then Kylani took the crown off of her head. She took his hand and let him stroke it, feel it.
“My love, it will be yours…”
“Sweet Kylani, I will come to your bed tonight.”
*
“Will His Majesty see me?” Reina asked the lad at the door of the king’s private rooms.
“Of course, Milady. His Majesty will return here, in a bit.”
Reina entered the bedchamber, and set herself about the foot of her royal lover’s bed. She was uneasy; Reina knew she had to tell him what Ardin had done to her. But then what would happen? Would he estrange the prince? Banish him? Then who would be his heir? – he was too old to father another son.
She tried to calm herself; she gazed around the king’s lavish bedroom. The walls were covered in portraits of him and his forefathers, along with other priceless paintings and jeweled swords meant solely for decoration. His bed occupied half of the room, and an enormous oak chest covered an entire wall.
Suddenly, Reina heard a frighteningly familiar voice. “Go away, boy.”
“I cannot, Your Majesty. It is His Majesty’s own wish that I remain here,” the lad replied.
“I am his son!”
“Why do you have a sword? Why are you armed?”
“Move it, or I will cut you down with it,” the voice – which was indefinitely Ardin’s – spat.
“Why do you wish to see His Majesty?”
“Private council, you fool! Now move!”
“He is not in there. He went to his pot.”
Reina had frozen with fear. Ardin—oh – why is he here?
“Would you just let me in?”Ardin half-pleaded, from outside. “Please?”
The lad reluctantly admitted Ardin, and then left as he had been bid.
“Your Majesty.” At once, Reina stood from the bed, and curtsied.
Ardin looked appalled. “You and my father have shared a bed?”
“Your Majesty, I –”
“My father has had you?” the prince continued, clenching his fists. He knew why he had come, he knew why he had brought his sword, he knew what he was doing, and his anger, his rage, his envy had driven all sense from his head. “Come here, Reina. Come to me.”
“N-no!” Reina gasped. “His Majesty will soon be here, and he would not like to see us!”
“But would you like it, Reina?” Ardin whispered, drawing her to him.
“Sir, I would not!” Reina cried, viciously tearing herself away from him.
“Then go!” the prince screamed. “But know that soon I will have you, anyway.”
*
Aranea’s course was now late by over a month. Could I be with child? She thought to herself, Warren’s child?
“Milady, some letters have come for you.” Aranea rose from her chair to take a satchel of letters from a maid.
“Thank you. Do you know who these are from?”
“Members of the campaign – Her Majesty, and some others… perhaps the Lord Warren,” the maid replied, with a shrug.
“Oh, thank you. I will read them alone.” The maid left, and Aranea sat back down in her chair, digging through the satchel for a letter from Warren. She found several envelopes marked with his seal, and tore them open in the order of the dates printed on each.
My love for you is all that keeps me alive. Only thoughts of you and our night together make me smile. I long for you and ask that you not worry or miss me; I would rather die than cause you a moment’s unease. I will write to you again soon. -W
Aranea read the letter three times, before setting it aside, quite unmoved, to read the next.
I find myself quite lonely, and so I wish I could have you here, for you are a friend and a lover to me, whereas Kylani is nothing. I have always loved you, but now that you have let me in, I love and respect you in tenfold.
Since I suppose you desire to know how the campaign is going, well, I shall tell you. It is actually quite boring. We ride by day until midnight, and then we set up camp and rise when the sun does. Then we ride, and it continues like so.
I request that you not worry for me, as, again, I would rather die than cause you any unhappiness. I ask that you instead worry for the futures of Espiarus and its queen, although both appear rather promising. –W
Desperate to read his last letter, Aranea tossed aside the one in her lap and reached for the last one, quickly and carelessly picking off its seal.
My love, you are all I truly need. Kylani is nothing to me. I desire you, love you; I think I will, forever. I am miles away from you at the given, and affianced to a woman I’ve nothing but disdain for, but I love you and have discovered that this love is all I need, and more. If only you would write to me, tell me you return my feelings… I could die on the morrow if you did.
I know things outwardly appear complicated, but if we love each other in our hearts, is that not simple?
She gathered all three letters into her hand, and threw each into the fireplace. She watched the flames slowly devour each, and found that she was crying. “Oh, why,” Aranea breathed, “Oh, why have I fallen so irrevocably in love, with the wrong man?”
*
“Ah, Son.” David entered his bedchamber and smiled as young Prince Ardin rose.
“Your Majesty,” Ardin said.
“Come outside, so we may have council.”
“Why not in this room, so not an ear could possibly overhear us?”
“My private rooms are empty, so come outside,” David ordered, sternly. He seated himself about a lavish armchair, and his son reluctantly sat at the simple chair across him.
“The maid Klaude, and my young masters of horse, Justinian and Eric, are our chosen…” David searched for the proper word, “… land privateers – yes?”
“Yes,” Ardin said.
“You are familiar with them?”
“More so than you, Your Majesty.”
“You are so bold with your tongue,” David said, bitterly. “I can’t imagine what you dare to do.”
“A lot,” Ardin said. He smiled. “A lot.”
“Well, at any rate, they must be dispatched within a week,” David said. “You will give them a map, and give them no choice but to do our bidding, for Myuri’s sake.”
“Why so soon, Your Majesty?” Ardin asked.
“Because,” David leaned in close to his son, and whispered, “Kylani. She is on the march.”
“Yes, but –”
“She has already swept right through Ra Fay, Autumnrain surrenders, perhaps they are all the wiser for it, and only Eurandala stands between ourselves and the devil’s queen, Kylani.”
“That is so, I am sure, but –”
“Ascendon,” David said, breathlessly, “is our last hope.”
“What if we fail?” Ardin whispered.
“Then you will never be king.”
“I wager I will be king, tomorrow.”
“Hmm?” David hadn’t heard his son.
“Nothing, Father. I shall speak to Klaude and Justinian and Eric on the morrow, and they will be gone within a week,” Ardin said.
“Good.”
“So,” Ardin began, unsteadily, “What of your marriage to the Lady Reina?”
“We are just waiting for the tailors to finish her gown, and the cooks to complete some pastry. We shall perhaps wed by the end of the week,” David replied. “She will make a fine queen, aye, boy?”
“A wonderful one. Father – of my marital prospects?” Ardin inquired, rather impatiently. He was twenty-two and the crown prince of Myuri – was he not a valuable marriage pawn? But it scarcely matters, now, Ardin thought, for I will soon take my future into my own hands.
“Oh,” David said, “oh, right. I had written to the King Mynno of Ra Fay about a union between you and his daughter the Princess Nene.” He frowned. “But, alas, they are probably both dead, and if Nene is alive, she is worth no account whatsoever.”
Ardin’s mouth shut like a trap, and he sat there and stared at his father, his father whom he’d always had little but secret contempt for. His gaze bore enough hatred to set the whole palace afire. “So I am to remain alone, though I am the most valuable bachelor in all of Myuri?”
“Second to myself,” David said.
“Second to God alone, not you, for you are repulsive in your old age, and you disgust the young flower who is your beautiful betrothed!” Ardin hissed, and he rose from his seat and marched over to his father, his hand touching his sheathed sword.
“How dare you!” David gasped.
“I dare because I can.”
“You cannot!”
“Why, of course I can. Did I not say that I would be king tomorrow?” Ardin laughed. And he drew his sword and struck it through his old father. He did this in part for Myuri – but mostly, for Reina.
*
“Reina – you have not come in so long!” Eric cried, as he watched Reina enter the stables.
Reina flushed, as she felt the eyes of every stable boy and maid. How could Eric act so familiar with her, before them all? “Master Eric, I am come for my maid, Klaude, not to ride. However, I should like a word with you out in the gardens.”
“Of course, Milady.” Eric followed her outside and they walked along the garden’s path like two unacquainted courtiers. “Is something the matter?”
“Something? More like everything!” Reina cried out, throwing her arms into the air and then latching them round Eric’s waist.
“My love…”
“You could never understand my position, Eric, so don’t try!” Reina cried.
“I am not. I am just trying to listen and provide for you some comfort.”
She wept into his chest and then pushed him away and beat the trunk of an immense oak. “This tree, Eric!”
“What of it?”
“The Prince almost had me against this tree,” Reina said, disdainfully.
“No!” Eric gasped. His eyes were wide. “Had you?”
“He wants me as his father does, but I want neither!” Reina shrieked.
“Had you,” Eric breathed, yet again. “His hands on your body, your mouth in his…”
“Eric, know this!” Reina cried. “If any hand that is not yours should ever so much as touch me, I would cry Rape!”
“Even the king’s? When he is your husband on your wedding night?”
“This isn’t about him!” cried Reina. “You know how I feel about you.”
“Let me kiss you,” he said. Eric took her in his arms and they lay down in the grass. He kissed her neck, and then her cheek; his lips lingered there, hesitant to push too far. “Let me have you…”
“No!”
“I want you, Reina.”
“And I need you, Eric.”
“Then why can we not have each other? Why can we not be together?”
Reina sighed, and they were both quiet. “You know, Eric, he won’t be here, forever.”
“Who?”
“His Majesty the King. He is old and his health is poor and getting poorer each day.”
“Are you saying that we wait for our sovereign’s death, so that we may be together?” Eric asked, shocked.
“Why, yes.”
“I almost believe I would wait forever, for you.”
Reina laughed. “If that is so, I am sure that you can wait just a little bit longer.”
*
Nene rose early that morning; she was fresh from her bed as she scrambled from the royal family’s private household. She squeezed through a narrow hole in the fortress surrounding the house, and hurried across the open fields towards the palace stable.
Her father and mother, the king and queen of Ra Fay, had forbade her to leave their family’s keep, but disobeying them was almost second nature to the young princess. They were always locked up in council, and so they never heard of the outrageous things their naughty little daughter would do at court.
At that moment, Nene was going to meet the attractive master of horse – her new and very temporary lover. The princess was breathless as she imagined making love to him in the hay.
She had her honey-gold hair combed back in a crimson hood, and wore a gown of scarlet damask with a low-cut bodice and slit butterfly-styled sleeves that licked the grass she walked on. Nene strode across the fields with her signature walk; gentle, graceful, seductive, irresistible. And then she stopped dead; two hands had piled atop her mouth.
Both hands slid from her lips down her neck; they stopped at her breasts and then took both wrists and held them together against her rear.
Nene turned to face her captor; he was robed in black so not to be seen, but the red sash about his neck told her all she needed to know. “Invader!” she gaspsed.
“Guilty as charged, my dear,” he said, in a deeply seductive manner. “And you are the princess? Why, the way you are dressed, I should think you an Espiarus Princess.”
“I am indeed the Princess Nene. You’ve no right to touch me, and so I ask that you release me.”
“Or what, Princess?”
“Or I shall scream out for the guards that aren’t far and they will kill you on the spot,” Nene said.
“And while you scream, I shall whistle, and my army of ten-thousand men shall parade through your palace gates of which we have already cut down,” the dark man said. “And I know you won’t scream for you are clearly in a fever for my touch.”
“I will not scream,” Nene agreed. “But what will you do to me?”
“Why, let you go. You’re worth absolutely no account; you are not King Mynno, nor Queen Vylette. You’re not a prince. You’re just a daughter. I will let you go and you must run.”
“Thank you,” Nene said, dryly. She then tried to pull away, but he did not let go.
“If you obey me exactly.”
“Of course.”
“Go and get a horse, and then meet me behind the palace keep,” he ordered.
Nene nodded her head in silent obedience, silent defeat. “Your name, Sir?”
He smiled. “Warren. Lord Warren of Espiarus.”
*
I return your love. I almost think I do so, in tenfold, Aranea wrote with a firm hand. It pains me that I cannot hold you at this very moment; it pains me that though I acknowledge my love, I cannot truly own it. All is in your hands. End this foolish affair with Kylani – if you truly love me as you claim to.
She set down the pen, awkwardly; what was there left to write? As always, I wish you the best. Should I indeed see you within a year, know that you will not be welcome in my bed with Kylani’s signet ring about your finger. –A
Aranea then sealed the letter and sent it on its way.
*
“Milady, I come with urgent news,” Reina’s maid said, as she entered the bedchamber.
The sun was not yet risen, and Reina was lying awake, thinking. “What?”
“The king,” the maid said, “is dead.”
“My God!” Reina cried, sitting up. She was silent for a bit, recalling the day she had met Ardin in David’s bedchamber. What happened when I left? She closed her eyes and swallowed, imagining the countless possibilities. “Leave me!”
“Yes, Milady. May I do something, anything, for you?”
“You may leave me, and tell no one to disturb me today.”
When the maid left, Reina rose from her bed, brushed her hair, and dressed; she ran towards the stables. “Where is Eric?” she said, breathlessly, to a boy laying out fresh hay.
“He went to see His Majesty Prince Ardin,” the boy replied. “The Master Justinian went with him.”
*
Nene met Warren behind the keep.
“You know what I want,” he said.
“I do.” Nene helped Warren to unlace and strip her gown; he covered her skin in kisses and took her mouth in his own. They lay down and made love in the dirt.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“Yes, you can go, Princess.”
“You’re the queen’s betrothed?” Nene asked, as she stood and let him help her back into her dress.
“Yes,” he said. “You may as well call me king.”
“I will,” Nene said, “when you are one.”
Warren laughed, and offered her a dagger from his belt. “Cut the skirt of your dress so that you can’t be slowed.”
“Thank you,” Nene replied, with little warmth. “So do you love her?” She sliced the bulky petticoat and shortened the skirt to somewhere about her knees.
“Who?”
The princess laughed. “Why, your betrothed, of course!”
“Oh, Kylani?” he asked, dismally. “No.”
“Thought so.” She paused. “Then who?”
“A nobody who could give me nothing,” Warren said coldly.
“I think if you truly love this girl, she can give you everything. Or just enough.”
“I think you know nothing about me, and so you’d be wise to shut your trap and go,” Warren said.
Nene nodded, mounted her horse, and was gone.
*
“Mistress Klaude, Master Justinian – you may go,” Ardin said flatly.
The two fled the gallery, leaving Eric and the prince alone. Ardin gazed into Eric’s face, spitefully, enviously, curiously; he had heard shallow, gossiping pages call Eric all but the Lady Reina’s lover. Dark blackguard, Ardin thought.
“I suppose you are unenthusiastic about this task I have given,” he said.
“Quite.”
“But you must put Myuri first,” Ardin said.
“I know. But of my daughter?”
“Oh, yes.” Ardin smiled. “I have decided to bestow upon her the highest possible honor.”
“What is that?”
“Your daughter is now the princess of Myuri.” Ardin paused. “She is next in line for the throne, for I am now King of Myuri.”
*
“I cannot believe this,” Klaude said, stalking up a flight of stairs to Justinian’s apartments.
“Klaude,” Justinian sighed, sitting down beside her on his bed.
“Don’t you want to marry me? Or do you not?”
“I do with all my heart,” he breathed.
“But we cannot now.” Klaude frowned. She avoided his grip and looked him in the face. “What is going to happen to us?”
“We will do as His Majesty orders; we will serve Myuri, Klaude.” Justin spread the map they had been given across the bed.
“But I don’t want to leave,” she whispered.
“But we may not wed unless we do,” Justinian hesitated.
“Myuri I – imagine! Is Ardin not a fool to think such a task possible?”
“Maybe his terrible desperation has made him a fool.”
“I wanted to stay and be happy here forever,” Klaude said, childishly. She put herself in his arms and nestled her head into his chest.
“You know it could never be like that,” Justinian whispered into her hair. “Everything is so terribly complicated for Myuri, as of now, and if someone doesn’t act it will be all of our ends.”
“That someone being us,” Klaude said dolefully.
“Why yes sweetheart, and what can we not do together?”
“Don’t count out Master Eric,” she said.
“Of course. And so we find Ascendon, and –”
“And we improvise.” Klaude smiled and opened her lips so that he could kiss her.
They were quiet for a bit; they enjoyed to pass time in the other’s arms.
“Poor Reina. Oh how she’ll miss Eric,” sighed Justinian.
*
“A letter,” Aurella said, “from Kylani.”
The Heiji sisters sat up in their bed, and each silently read the paper.
Espiarus has just claimed a wonderful victory over Ra Fay. Mynno and Vylette are dead but their daughter has somehow escaped; I can’t imagine how, nor can Warren. I request in earnest that you find and destroy her, for so long as the silly princess lives, so does senseless hope of these conquered Ra Fay persons. Signed, Your Queen Kylani.
“Another task,” Zelda said bitterly. “Can she do nothing herself?”
“Oh Zelda don’t be like that,” sighed Etsuko. “You know she is busy; always, always busy – senselessly trying to get Warren in her bed.”
The three sisters shared a laugh, and drank a bit more wine before sleeping.
“Tomorrow we leave for Ascendon,” Aurella declared.
*
The king’s coronation took place in the privacy of his gallery. A page set a crown about his head and he signed some documents. The few who were present knelt at the end of the procession. In contrast, the coronation of his predecessor and father, David, had been rich and splendid and public; he made a grand speech before his kingdom, and a priest crowned him King of Myuri.
“Now,” Ardin said. He took a little baby girl in his lap, and the same page set a small crown on her head. “The princess of Myuri.”
Eric signed some papers regarding his daughter, and then returned to his position right of the chair Ardin was sitting in. The page and few onlookers wondered what was so special about this infant, wondered what it had to do with Ardin, wondered why it was to be princess of Myuri for no apparent reason. But no one questioned the new king. No one questioned his reasoning, his motives – or his innocence.
The new king then clasped his hands together, rose, and triumphantly walked to his apartments. He sent a maid to summon Reina.
*
“Tell him no,” Reina said. Several maids were lacing the front of a black damask mourning gown; the gown was so stylish and rich that it was difficult for anyone to believe that Reina was miserable. A velvet hood of raven black restrained her hair; a crown of pearls was sewn into its hem.
“As you wish, Milady. Is there anything else you’d like me to say to His Majesty?”
“Tell him this: I congratulate you on behalf of,” she hesitated, searching for the right words, “your rise… no… coronation. Success? No? Never mind. However, I should like to intimately mourn His Majesty King David’s death in my own time, and shall see no one until then.”
“Yes, Milady.” The maid frowned and awkwardly slipped away.
Ardin laughed in her face, when she conveyed Reina’s message, and Reina was half-dragged to his receiving rooms.
She took her thick skirts and curtsied low, a courtier’s smile plastered about her face. “Your Majesty.”
“Lady Reina,” Ardin said charmingly. At the wave of his hand, all of the new king’s servant’s fled the room.
When they were alone, Reina said, “What do you want from me?”
“I need to talk to you, Lady Reina – that is all.”
“Fine then, Your Majesty – talk to me.” Reina folded her arms across her chest and sat on a chair across from him.
“My father has long anticipated his death due to his declining health,” Ardin declared. “It was his own wish that upon his death, you and I should wed.”
Reina’s mouth shut like a bitter trap. “You know that’s a lie.”
“Oh? What?”
“You killed your father! For God’s sake, don’t deny what you know is true!” Reina cried.
“Hush,” Ardin growled.
“I will not marry you, Ardin, and that is final. I will not be a murderer’s wife!”
“You will,” Ardin said. “From this moment onward, you will be my queen. You will be Queen Reina. And we will have children – princes and princesses.
“I will not!” Reina gasped.
“I suppose you’d rather be some master of horse’ wife?” Ardin spat.
Reina hid her shock at his words, his true, true words. “Anyone but you.”
“That’s too bad,” Ardin said spitefully. “You may go, Lady Reina.”
“I thank Your Majesty.”
“And Lady Reina?”
“Yes?” She stood in the doorway; she faced him fearlessly.
“Eric will soon be gone. He has obeyed me, as you must and will.”
*
Reina threw a black cloak over her nightdress and paraded through her rooms and outside despite the desperate pleas of her maids that she should stay; a terrible summer storm was raging outside.
She marched down the empty outdoor corridors, rain spilling on her in thick sheets from the terrible leeks in the awnings. Her feet were bear but she steadily walked across the fields, fiercely determined to see the man she loved. Reina could see Eric closing the stables for the night. She pulled up to the doors before he closed them.
“My God,” Eric breathed. “Come inside, I don’t want you wet and cold.”
“I’m well enough,” Reina said.
“Does that mean you’d like me to come outside and join you for a walk in the rain?”
“Yes,” Reina replied. She gave him her arm and they walked in the soaked gardens.
The rain was buckets of water pouring down on them; the storm was so loud they could not hear the other talking.
“Why are you going?” Reina finally asked, after the storm had calmed down a bit. “Toy with my heart, and then leave me, hm?”
“No!” Eric gasped. “Never in a million years would I ever willingly leave you.”
“I don’t suppose you’re being sent away. Not when your own daughter is Princess of Myuri!”
“Until you marry Ardin and borne him sons,” Eric countered coolly.
“I don’t want to marry him,” Reina said. “I declined but he will stop at nothing. My passion for you has made me forget my ambitions; I want nothing but you – not the throne, nothing.” She paused and looked him in the face. “Eric, nothing and nobody but you.”
“I know it, Reina.” Eric smiled; he took her little wet hands in his own. “Listen to me, Reina. Ardin has indeed ordered that I leave with Justinian and your maid, little Klaude. He bids us go to Ascendon following a map that could be trumped for all I know, for all he knows. He wants us to,” Eric paused; Reina would surely think him a fool for what he was about to say, “raise Myuri I from the dead.”
“Oh,” Reina said, softly. “Oh. And so he christens your bastard daughter Princess of Myuri as… compensation?”
“I suppose,” Eric said.
“He thinks Myuri I can save us from Kylani? Kylani, who is without a doubt Myuri I reincarnated?” Reina laughed, spitefully. “God knows, this could be entertaining.”
In spite of himself, Eric laughed a bit. The rain was now little more than a drizzle, and they stopped walking to sit down for a little bit. “Oh, Reina – if I die, if I never see you again – there is so much I will regret.”
“What?” asked Reina, leaning her head on his muscular shoulder. “What, Eric?”
“I will regret not kissing you,” he said, “I will regret not kissing your rosy lips. I will regret not telling you I love you, because I do. I love you with all my heart.”
Reina smiled up at him; her eyes were glistening with tears. “I love you,” she told him. “Know that I would regret some things, too.”
“Such as?” Eric’s heart was beating wildly. He was in love and he had confessed to being in love. The feeling was confusing but genuine.
“I will regret not letting you have me,” she said.
“I don’t want to leave you rueful,” Eric told her.
“I would not want to see you off, without a kiss,” Reina said. Her hands found his chest, and slowly, sensually, her mouth found his.
They crept to the bushes behind them, and Eric was overcome with love and lust and passion and desire, all intertwined and all raging within him, as he held Reina in his hand. “Are you sure?” he whispered to her. “Are you sure? Oh, Reina, I don’t want to hurt you; I almost believe my passion could burn you up.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “I think your passion will meet its match against mine.”
And so they made love in the wet woodland of the royal gardens. The storm once again was raging in full. They shamelessly stripped to the skin, taking no notice of the rain pouring down on them. They held each other, wet and naked. He covered her delicious body with kisses and she put her arms around his neck and allowed him to do as he pleased. Reina opened her legs and welcomed him into her once virginal body. They were happy and empowered and without regret; they were young and in love and knew nothing but their love itself.
Then, too soon, it was time to say good-bye. Eric helped Reina back into her dress; he combed her soaked black hair with his fingers and wrapped her thick cloak around her body. He kissed her on either cheek and then her lips.
There were no tears left to be shed. Reina left Eric without another word; she felt like a woman renewed as she walked to her bed.
*
“Where did you go?” Klaude asked, as she dumped an armful of towels onto the bed. Reina stripped and Klaude dried her body, and then fetched a fresh nightdress for her.
“To Eric. Oh, Klaude, why must he leave me?”
“Did he tell you why?” Klaude asked, in a small voice.
“Yes, oh, yes! Fool Ardin is. And now I’ve nothing and no one – not you, my dearest friend, not your lover, who was good and trustworthy company, and not the love of my life whom fate constantly denies me of,” Reina said, dolefully. “Klaude, I want to die.”
“No you don’t,” Klaude replied, sweetly. “You’ll be such a wonderful queen that Myuri will sing of your glory.”
“I don’t care to be queen,” Reina said. “I want Eric. And I want you – my friend.”
“I will always stand your friend,” Klaude said. She looked around to confirm that they were alone. “Why don’t you come with us? Why don’t you run away?”
“I will think about it,” Reina said. But she had her mind made up; there was no thinking to be done.
*
At midnight, Klaude had packed a couple of spare riding dresses, a winter cloak, a jeweled rapier she had been given and riding boots. Reina had packed three riding dresses, three riding coats, two summer gowns, three cloaks, riding boots, heeled slippers and twin blades King David had given her.
They waited with their luggage in the rear corridor of the palace. A carriage alas appeared, led by four strong stallions. Justinian stepped down from it. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” Klaude said.
“Hello, Reina,” Justinian said, smiling.
The luggage was heaved into the back of the carriage, and Reina and Klaude lay in the back. The moon was full and they were exhausted.
Eric took the reins of their horses and drove them out. He was yet to so much as acknowledge Reina.
Soon the palace was just a blur behind them. There was no turning back.
Foolishly, Justinian was excited. They would reach Ascendon and call forth Myuri I and then he and Klaude would wed and all would be perfect. Wouldn’t it be?
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
With a new vicious army at the ready, at dawn on the morrow, Kylani would parade through what was lefOhht of Ra Fay and begin her march towards Congrella.
“So, Lady Aranea, I will be leaving with Her Majesty the Queen Kylani at dawn tomorrow, and you are to remain here and keep order at her court while we are away,” Warren said, politely and with little warmth, for all around him in Aranea’s receiving rooms, were her maids and his gentlemen. They were barely paying attention, though; they were far too busy courting.
“I am honored. Tell Her Majesty to take with her my best wishes,” Aranea replied, a courtier’s mannerly and emotionless smile fixed on her face.
“With goodwill, Milady.” Warren reluctantly rose to leave.
“I – wait, Milord. When do you – I mean, Her Majesty, of course – expect to return to court, where I will be staying?” Aranea asked, rising, as well.
Warren’s mouth was a thin, straight line. “Less than a year,” he said.
For a brief moment Aranea let herself go unchecked and allowed the heartbrokenness she felt to show in her face, but then she recovered herself and the lively courtier’s smile of hers returned to her face. “I thank you. And, again, pray tell Her Majesty –”
“All of you: Out,” Warren said, and the maids and his grooms filed out of the room.
“Warren… what is the matter?” asked Aranea, in a small voice.
“Stop it, Aranea. Stop it. We are alone.” He took her hand and pressed it tenderly against his cheek. “My Aranea…”
“Kylani is yours. Now leave me.”
“I will not see you in months, in so many months; I beg of you to not send me away, not with a broken heart,” Warren whispered.
“Warren…”
“Oh, Aranea. My heart, my all, my truest, truest love!” he cried out, shaking with desire as he reached for her.
“Warren…”
“Aranea?”
“Stop it. Be quiet, just for a moment. Just for a moment, do let me talk for once.”
“My sweetheart, I am all ears.” Warren sat down, again, inviting a standing Aranea into his lap. She shook her head, and slid open the door to the balcony before them. She walked out onto the deck, and a breeze picked up her dark hair and threw it about in a manner that Warren could not, could not resist.
Aranea turned around and faced him; her lips were a confident, challenging smile. “She, oh, she can give you the throne, the crown, wealth and power and influence,” she said, allowing him close enough to her, so that she could breathe into his neck. “But I, I, can give you your heart’s single greatest desire.”
“Then don’t waste my time like this! Give it to me, now, Aranea!” Warren cried, torn between rage and lust.
“No.” And she gracefully turned on her heel and left him there, alone.
*
“What is that?” Eric asked.
“A little note from Klaude. While her mistress is being fitted this afternoon, she can come and we might have a day, together,” Justinian said, showing his friend the small card that had been brought to him by a little page earlier.
“Oh, how fine. She is good company,” Eric said. And then he paused. “She can read and write?”
“Oh, no. It says that the Lady Reina wrote this, for her.”
“Ah.” Eric paused yet again. “So… the Lady Reina can read?”
“Yes… I suppose she can, if she can write,” Justinian said, awkwardly.
“Oh,” Eric said, deep in thought, “oh.”
*
By evening, Reina had finished a fitting session for just the bodice of her wedding gown, and there was still much to be chosen: the design and dye to be used for the bodice, the ruffle pattern and collar. She was so tired; she sunk into a soft armchair that David had had built for her.
“Milady,” one of the king’s pages greeted her. “His Majesty invites you to his rooms to dine.”
“Oh, tell him I cannot! I am tired and hot with mild fever. If I am to be healthy for tomorrow’s fitting, I must rest,” Reina said. “Please send to him my everlasting love.”
The page nodded and was soon gone. Klaude brought Reina some spiced wine. “There is a bath, ready for you, Milady.”
“Oh, wonderful.”
“I am sorry you are ill.”
Reina laughed. “I am not, just so tired I cannot dine with His Majesty.”
“Oh.” Klaude looked down, timidly. “Milady, you know that I cannot read, yes?”
“Yes, dear Klaude. That is why I wrote a note for you, earlier today,” Reina said, awkwardly.
“Well,” Klaude continued, “Master Eric gave me this, to give to you, while I was at the stables, today. Since you know how to read.” She handed Reina a little folded note.
Reina spread it out across her lap and turned away from Klaude.
I know that by the time this note reaches you, you will be so very tired after a long and busy day. However, I am haunted by your words those days ago, that you must see me again and alone and soon, and so I reach out to you, like this: if you truly desire to see me, please do come to the fields by the stream and be there, by ten. Eric.
She blushed and crumpled the paper and threw it into the fire.
“Milady?” asked Klaude, cocking her head in confusion.
“Help me to dress into something very pretty, dear Klaude,” Reina said. She looked at the little clock in the corner of the room: twenty minutes to ten. “Come, come. Let us be fast.”
*
Warren gave a meek kiss to Kylani’s cheek and her hand, and rose from the couch to leave. Outside the sky was black and the moon had never once been so full.
“Will you not come to my bed?” the queen asked, with a frown.
“I cannot. I still have much to prepare for tomorrow, and should like to sleep in my own, tonight.” He took his time leaving her rooms, but once the door was shut behind him, Warren flew across some hallways and practically beat down Aranea’s door.
She was sitting at the couch of her receiving rooms, sipping wine, and fully dressed, as though waiting for him.
“I could not, and will not ever, stop thinking of you,” Warren declared, easing the door shut behind himself.
“I have been thinking a bit of you, too,” Aranea replied, standing. Within moments she was before him, so close and yet so far. “And, I would not want to send you away with a broken heart.”
“Will you give yourself to me, this night?” he whispered into the nape of her neck.
“But it is not sensible, Warren, it is not…”
“This night we can be sensible, or we can be very happy,” he said. “I want to be happy, Aranea. And you?”
“I want to be happy,” she breathed. “We can be sensible when I see you again, in a year.”
He laughed, and before either realized it, they were making love and neither could recall a moment in their lives of which they had been happier.
They were alone; the full moon was their only witness.
*
Reina arrived at the fields just minutes before ten. She had washed and changed into a light dress of white linen and delicate silk slippers; she had removed all of her jewels.
Along the path, she could make out Eric’s attractive figure. His slow, casual walk made her laugh, for as she stood there waiting for him, her heart beating right out of her chest, he walked as though strolling through a park.
“If only you’d walk faster,” Reina called out, as he got closer. She noticed that he carried a baby to his waist, a little girl.
“What is the rush?”
“You’re late,” Reina said, frowning. “You know this is dangerous.”
He laughed. “Oh, how?”
“If someone saw us…”
“If someone saw us, doing what?” Eric said, smiling. “Why would we be doing anything? Would you want to, hm?”
“No!” gasped Reina. “I just mean, should someone see us together like this, they might get the wrong idea…”
“What is the right idea, then, Reina?”
She gazed around anxiously. No one in sight. “Will you please follow me?” Reina whispered. She touched his arm and he followed her down into the creek.
Eric laughed a bit as he watched her struggle down the little creek side slope. He guided her down with his free arm, and she fitted herself into his lap as they sat in the wet dirt.
“So, you can read?” Eric asked.
“Yes, that is why I am here, mm?” Reina said. She smiled. “And I can write and I do enjoy it.”
“Oh, I just hadn’t known –”
“I have been schooled and educated. I’m not some fool.”
He shrugged. “I often hear people say you know nothing, and that the king would be wise to have you as a mistress, not a queen. They say you are really just his…”
“His whore,” Reina finished.
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, they do not know me. They judge me and they don’t know my situation.” Reina paused; she frowned. “And you don’t know me, either.”
Eric shuddered; he didn’t know her and he had judged her. He had called her a whore, and had come that night expecting her to throw herself onto him, wanton as any tavern maid. He looked towards the baby Rynn, and remembered why he had taken her; she was an example that women should be treated right – and, of course – Justinian could not watch her that night, and she could not stay at the nursery.
“I do not know you, but I wish that I did.”
“Forget it.” She smiled. “So you’ve a wife – the mother of your little girl?”
“Oh, no, Milady, I’m a sinner,” Eric laughed.
“But it hardly matters if you are good at your sin.”
“You wouldn’t know,” he whispered, “yet.”
Reina threw back her shoulders. “It is a whore’s nightmare, to have a child…”
“She wasn’t a whore,” Eric said, defensively. “She was just a girl and it was my fault.”
“It was your fault, that you were so irresistible, and she could not, she could not tear herself away from you, in that moment?”
Eric shrugged; he could not bring himself to speak of Dele, he could not bring himself to speak of all he had wronged her, in just one night.
Reina frowned. “Did you love her, Eric?”
“No,” he said, “but I think I almost did.”
“Do you love me, Eric?” she whispered into his neck, without any hesitation.
He smiled. “Not yet. But in time I could with ease.” Eric was surprised by his own words; he had never once been in love, and yet in such a short amount of time he had already half-fallen for this beautiful, respectable woman in his arms.
Reina beamed, and then frowned and pulled away. “But you could never have me, and I could never have you, because I sold my soul for the throne.”
“Oh, Reina, are you in love with His Majesty?” asked Eric, ruefully, although he already knew the answer. How could she be, when he was middle-aged to say the least, and she was in her rich and seductive prime?
“No,” she said, without a trace of shame in her voice. “No, I am not. But he desired me and I desired the crown, and I hate you for making me regret my choice.”
“Forgive me, that I could never wish upon you a moment’s heartbreak or rue,” Eric said, surprised at his own heartfelt words.
Reina frowned. “As they all say, I am a whore and a fool, stupid and thoughtless and faithless,” she said, tears starting to slither down her face, hard as she fought them back.
“You are brilliant and well-educated and witty and so beautiful,” Eric said, with a gasp, wondering where her lovely self-confidence had gone to. “You are perfect; please don’t deny it.”
She was quieted by his comforting touch, skillfully brushing the tears from her face; she stopped crying and smiled, a little bit. “Yes,” Reina said, “I am. In this moment, here in your arms, I am perfect.”
“You are perfect everywhere but, yes, particularly here. I wish you could stay here, forever.”
Reina sighed, and pulled herself deeper into him. “I want to love you.”
“You don’t yet?” he asked, confused as to why he felt a sense of relief.
“Not yet,” she whispered, “but with some time and with your touch, I think I could come to be just mad for you.”
His lips found her cheek, and she smiled at his gentleness.
Reina stood. “It’s late; I must return to my bed. My maids may wonder where I have wandered off to, and His Majesty may come.”
“Of course,” Eric said. He rose, as well. “Milady, I will always be available to you. You need only ask.”
“Klaude may be our messenger. She is a sweet girl that can be trusted,” Reina declared.
“And Justinian will always like to see her,” Eric added.
“Yes,” Reina said. “They’re quite in love.”
“Mad for each other.”
They stood in silence. Reina turned around; there was only darkness and some moonlight.
They stood in silence. Reina turned around; there was only darkness and some moonlight.
“Reina, wait,” Eric said, softly. He stepped behind her, and drew something from his shirt, something he had kept from the last solstice.
“A mask?” she whispered, as he fastened the ribbons of a silver and gold mask over her eyes. She could not see it, but it felt rich, beautiful against her skin.
“Yes,” he replied. “A mask to hide our secret… and also, because it suits you well.”
Reina laughed. “Will you not kiss me?” she asked, quietly.
“I could not,” Eric said. “I dare not.”
Reina laughed coolly. “You dare say so much to me, and yet you dare not kiss me?”
“Because I do not wish to give you a half-kiss; you deserve a full one. When you are in love with me, I will kiss you full as you deserve.”
“Fine then,” Reina said. “I’ll tell you when I am.”
*
“So,” Aurella said, “we must go to Ascendon, and we must summon Myuri I before King David’s privateers, and then somehow get her to bow down to Kylani.”
Zelda stood to feed the fire a bit, and then joined her sisters on their massive bed. “Firstly, where is Ascendon? It’s quite embarrassing that we don’t know, when we’ve magic in our veins and it is where we rightfully belong, hm? We were there when Myuri II ordered all creatures with magic to Ascendon, and all who hadn’t magic to leave from Ascendon. We should know where it is… we should.”
“How does David know where Ascendon is?” Etsuko said.
“He probably got a map from an old explorer.” Aurella frowned. “So how will we find Ascendon? Since we must? Since we have been ordered by Her Majesty the Queen Kylani, to find it?”
They were quiet for a bit.
“Etsu,” Zelda said, “do you remember our… half-brother?”
Etsuko flushed. “I could never forget him. Why?”
“Perhaps Noel knows where Ascendon is. But where is he?” Zelda said.
“Before we came to Espiarus, I received this letter from him.” Aurella drew a sheet of sealed parchment from the apron of her dress.
To any Lady Heiji: I know it has been some years since we have had any contact, and this is just a letter to tell you that I am alive and well. Noel Lusia-Heiji.
Etsuko laughed. “Fool he is, to call himself a Heiji when he was just our father’s bastard.”
“Well,” Zelda said, clasping her hands together, “at dawn we must have this letter traced and write to Noel. We must find Ascendon; we can’t disappoint Her Majesty.”
Aurella frowned. “Of course we can disappoint Her Majesty. We are Heiji, and we can do as we please. We serve because we wish to, because we support her, not because we must. She has nothing over us.”
“Yes, but –”
Etsuko burst into a fit of laughter. “It is actually quite amusing. The queen depends so heavily on us, we are so important to her, and yet we do not threaten her power, at all. Imagine our mother and father, in our situation. They would stomp Kylani and King David out and then become king and queen of Myuri.”
“Are you proposing… mutiny, Etsuko?” whispered Aurella, tantalized.
“Oh, no.” Etsuko shook her head. “Not yet.”
“But politics don’t interest us anyway… right?” Zelda gasped.
“Right,” Etsuko agreed, “but power does.”
*
King David had fallen ill, and was confined to his bed for the following week. He could feel life and death tearing, prying at him, and through the pain and nerve and fear, David reached and called out for Reina. But she never came to visit him, at what was possibly his deathbed.
The week was one of flirtation and merriment, for Reina. Fitting for her wedding gown had been canceled due to David’s illness, and so she used all of her free time to go with Klaude to the stables. With each passing day, she fell more and more under Eric’s spell; her poor, sick betrothed had slipped from her mind. Sometimes, Reina and Eric would ride into town, alone; they would do as they pleased, they would sometimes splash around in the empty town baths.
One evening, Reina had even arranged a court feast and ball; she was so overjoyed with her new handsome, young lover that all sense was gone from her.
After some dancing with Sir Thomas and then Justinian, Klaude sat down at a table with some of Reina’s other maids and the king’s pages.
“Doesn’t the Lady Reina appear a bit too happy?” one of the maids said, accusingly.
Klaude shrugged, and sipped some ale.
“Her betrothed could die, and she throws a feast and a ball. Isn’t that rude? Insensitive? Oh, scandalous?” the maid continued.
“A feast in honor of the king – did we not all pray for his good health in the dining hall?” Klaude said, defensively.
“But just look at her. Look at the way she dances! There is no grief, no sadness, no anxiety to her face!”
Klaude did look up. Reina had had the floor cleared, and was dancing across it with such effortless grace and with a smile on her face from ear-to-ear; she had half the men in the room drooling. The Prince Ardin’s mouth was hanging open, and he stared at her as though she was a savory pot roast.
“She enjoys to dance. She is so stressed, these days, so stressed over His Majesty’s health, that her only pleasure comes from dancing,” Klaude lied. She knew that nothing in the world save for Eric himself could give Reina pleasure. She watched Reina gesture for Eric to rise and join her on the floor.
“You wouldn’t defend her if you were not her favorite,” the maid said, spitefully.
“And you would not utter such slander against her, if she bought you dresses and spoiled you.”
“Lattice is correct though,” one of the pages said. “The Lady Reina has not yet once come to visit the king, in his poor health. She is never anywhere indoors at court, except at dinner. God knows what she does, by day.”
“She does nothing but mourn him,” Klaude said. “When she is queen, you will regret your words.”
*
It was midnight, and Eric and Justinian had returned to their apartments at the stables.
Eric held little Rynn in his lap, and they sat before a fire drinking.
“May I confide in you, Justinian?” Eric asked, in a low voice after some silence.
“Of course.”
“It is about Reina. I have yet to so much as kiss her, whereas if she was any other woman, I probably would have lain with her, by now and yet I am so… drawn to her. I think I am…” he hesitated.
“In love, Eric?” Justinian put in.
“Maybe.”
Justin sighed. “But you can’t love her. If the king lives, she will marry him, and if your love affair is exposed, you will be banished from court, and she will be deemed an adulteress, a whore!”
Eric was quiet; he turned away from Justinian.
“Eric… You can’t love her…” Justinian sighed.
Eric rose from his seat. “Watch me.”
*
“Noel,” said Aurella, smiling. “Thank you for coming to help us.”
“Of course, my sister.” Noel knelt and gave her hand a gentle kiss. He did same to Zelda, and then gave Etsuko a peck on the cheek.
“Come to my bed tonight,” she whispered into his ear. He smiled and nodded his head with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy.
“So,” Noel said, “what is it that you want of me?”
“Where is Ascendon, Noel? We know you know,” Zelda said, impatiently. She’d once had a girl’s crush on him, but when he’d had affairs with Aurella and then declared himself in love with Etsuko, her affections soured to bitter heartbrokenness.
“I spend winters there, sometimes,” he said, shrugging.
“Is it far?” Aurella inquired.
“Just less than a year’s commute… by horse.”
Aurella scowled. “Directions, please. A map would do perfectly. We ought to leave within a week.”
Noel laughed. “Sister, I will give you nothing. Allow me to come along with you; I will lead the way. We are brother and sister; let us be together!”
“If you will not give us directions, you may leave at dawn on the morrow,” Aurella said, icily.
*
Noel used the key Etsuko had slipped into his hand to come to her bed, that night. She lay waiting for him, in just her skin, fiery locks tumbled all about her naked body.
“Perfect,” breathed Noel. “My sister is the ravenous goddess of sex and beauty…”
“Yours only,” Etsuko declared. He was the thousandth man she had said this to.
He tugged off his breeches and threw himself atop her. He gave her a hot kiss, and she matched the strength of his mouth with her own. She opened up her legs, and Noel cried out as he entered her. He covered her in kisses and bathed her in passionate tears. “I am so in love with you,” he howled, kissing her breasts and groping them in his hand. Etsuko merely laughed and petted him; it was all just a game to her, really.
When he was done with her body, Etsuko stood and drew a blank scroll from the desk, and a pen. “Draw me a map to Ascendon,” she ordered.
Still panting with desire and satisfaction and lust, Noel took the pen and began sketching a map and writing specific directions.
My body truly is my greatest tool, Etsuko thought, with a smile of twisted pride.
*
“May I come in?” Reina asked, in a small voice. “Milord? David?”
The door swung open. The senior man stood in the doorway, fully dressed in a lightly armored suit, a jewel encrusted crown set about his graying head. “What is it?” he asked, irritably.
Reina was surprised by his coolness; she cocked her head in confusion. “My love, are you upset with me?”
“I am well now, so why do you visit me?” David said, bitterly. He shook his head, miserably. “As I lay in bed, I desired you and you did not come.”
“I was not asked!” cried Reina.
David looked away; his chest heaved as he sighed. “Do you love me, Reina? If you do not, I can release you from our betrothal, though I whole-heartedly do not wish to.”
Reina hesitated. She thought of Eric, imagined his mouth against her own – and then she pushed him from his mind, and allowed thoughts of queenship to occupy it, instead. “But I do. I do love you, Milord! I have come to be with you, for I cannot be without you…”
He smiled, endeared by her youthful desperation. “Oh, my love…”
Reina beamed. “Shall we ride? Or perhaps walk? Or…” she played with the collar of her dress, opening it to show the contents of her bodice.
She watched him half-drool with lust, and struggled to keep from laughing.
David caught his breath. “We can walk in the gardens. I will meet you there in a half hour.”
*
Reina returned to her rooms and sat before her dresser with Klaude.
“His Majesty will walk with me in the gardens,” Reina declared. “He is quite well now.”
“Good,” Klaude said, uneasily.
Reina smiled. “Yes.”
“What of… Eric?” Klaude asked, hesitantly, and not before gazing around to confirm that they were alone.
“I will throw him away upon becoming queen,” Reina replied. She looked down into her lap ruefully. “I will have to.”
*
“Where is the Lady Reina?”
Klaude looked up from her mistress’ dresser, which she was cleaning. “Your Majesty?” she looked at Prince Ardin with some confusion.
“For God’s sake: Are all the palace maids this foolish?” Ardin bellowed, clenching his fists with rage. “Where is Reina?”
“She has gone to the gardens to meet His Majesty,” Klaude answered shakily. She then watched the prince leave.
Silently, the prince came closer, studying the wardrobe. Klaude could only watch as he snatched a metallic, peal-seed-pressed face mask in his hand, and then marched from the room.
*
Aranea frowned. “That’s quite strange,” she said, as she went to her bed.
“What is?” her bedfellow asked, awkwardly.
“My course is two weeks late, and didn’t come today.”
The girl laughed. “Perhaps you are with child? Oh, who is the father?”
Aranea laughed, as well, hiding her sudden nerve.
Warren.
*
With one hand, Reina lifted the heavy velvet skirts of her dress, and with the other, she held up a delicate paper parasol. She looked around for David and anyone in general; the gardens seemed particularly empty.
“Milady?”
Reina turned around. “Hello, Prince Ardin. Have you seen your father?”
“I am not enough?” Ardin countered, pulling up beside her; he was smirking.
“No,” Reina said, coldly, “you aren’t. Remember your place. I will soon be your stepmother.” She spoke with more confidence than she felt; her gut told her Ardin was dangerous.
“You remember your place!” the prince said. There was no emotion on his face; he looked right through her, and Reina feared what he would say next, do next.
“Where is that, pray tell me?” she thundered in response.
His hot, heavy hands were soon upon her, and they pushed Reina into a tree. They wandered her body, as his mouth fiercely kissed her own. “Under me,” he alas breathed, to answer her question.
Horrified, Reina looked into his dark, face, studied his twisted smirk. She wondered how everything had changed in a matter of seconds, and how fate had brought her here, beneath him.
“Get off,” Reina breathed. “You’re scaring me, Ardin!”
Ardin pulled back, but kept her pinned to the trunk of the tree. “You don’t belong to my father,” he said, boldly. “I could rid of him, and be a better king for Myuri and you, Reina.” He kissed her on the lips, again. “I would do anything to have you. Anything,” the prince breathed into her face.
“Reina!” Reina recognized David’s voice; he was near.
“Your father’s here – get off me and go away!” Reina said, her head spinning.
Ardin gasped; he could see his father in the distance. He released Reina from his hands, and sprinted away.
“There you are, my love,” David said. “I heard some movement, some sound, and so I followed it and found you here.”
She was still leaning against the tree, her eyes wide with panic. “Reina… is everything all right?”
Reina recovered her wit and nodded and feigned a smile. “Oh, yes. Everything is perfect.”
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
“Who is that?” Reina stumbled out of her lavish new bed, and took a flying leap for the window seat. She peered out the window; it was so early, the sky was still dark. “LaRue, who is that?”
The old woman sat up and yawned and joined Reina at the window seat. “Just a boy,” LaRue replied. “Just a boy. And just because you will now be attending court, you are not free to flirt with any young gentlemen, no matter how appealing.”
“Why ever?” sighed Reina. She brought down her hand which she had used to wave at the darkly handsome young man, outside.
“Because you would break the king’s feeble old heart. He’s quite, quite, taken with you, you know?”
Reina tossed back locks of her jet-black hair. “Of course I know. He gave me these rooms, didn’t he? These gorgeous apartments that were once his late queen’s?”
“How do you know that?” asked LaRue, raising her brow. “His queen died before you were even born.”
“I heard some maids talking,” Reina replied, simply. “Apparently they have not been in use since her death.”
“You’re such a vain thing,” LaRue said, with a half-smile on her lips. “You truly do belong at court.” She looked at Reina and saw herself, decades ago, when she was still young and beautiful and heartily desired. She recounted how conceited, how vain she had been; only after her one true love walked out of her life, did she realize how meaningless it was, to have the hearts of so many, and yet lose the only one you truly desired. Don’t cry, LaRue. Only fools cry.
Reina looked down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap. “Oh, do I?” She swallowed. “LaRue, I’m… scared. You can’t leave me. You can’t go to Willow House and leave me. No, you can’t.”
“It is the will of the king.”
Reina smiled. “The king is not a god.” Both laughed, for a moment. “When will you be leaving?”
“After he has broken his fast, the king will see to my departure. So in a few hours, perhaps.”
They sat in silence.
“God, Reina, don’t cry. How old are you? Seventeen? Don’t cry.”
“What do I have now, though?” Reina whimpered. “Not my home, not my father, not you…”
“You have a promising future,” LaRue said. “Something I don’t.”
Reina could not deny this.
“Take this.” LaRue unclasped a silver chain from her neck; she held a jewel in her palm, and squeezed it for a second. Then she opened up her hand and offered Reina its contents: a fat moonstone necklace. “I’ve no need of it, so don’t even argue with me. Don’t. Just take it.”
Reina looked up at her, with big, teary eyes. “I-I – why ?”
“Your heart is so young, but with it you must love wisely,” the old woman whispered. “Or it will break.”
*
It was terribly early. Most of the palace was still sleeping; King David’s court was renowned for its laziness and indulgence.
“Put Master Eric’s bags on the cart,” Prince Ardin ordered the small staff of boy servants. “And take him to his rooms.” He looked at Eric. “I’ll have Rynn taken to the royal nursery.”
“I thank Your Majesty.” Eric stepped out of the carriage.
Ardin turned to him. “Are you good with horses, Master Eric? Are you a fine rider?”
“I know breeds well, and I am sufficient at riding,” Eric replied.
“My father needs a new Master of Horse, at least for the given, so I have given you apartments at the stables.”
Eric smiled. “I am grateful for it, Your Majesty. When will I next see you?” At that moment, he gazed up into the window above them. A girl he recognized waved at him; he recounted seeing her some two days or so, ago. She was all dark hair and thirsty eyes, how could he forget?
He waved back, and offered the girl a faint grin.
“You will sup with myself and His Majesty, my father, and another guest of his.” Ardin paused. “Who… who were you waving at, up there? Who is in those rooms?”
“Just a girl, Your Majesty,” Eric said, with a little shrug. “Just a girl.”
*
“I, too, plan to wed soon,” Thomas said, refilling his wooden cup with wine. “Later this summer, at court.”
“You are one of His Majesty Prince Ardin’s grooms?” Justinian inquired. He set his own cup aside; he was always careful not to drink too much.
“Yes, and a knight.” Thomas finished the contents of his cup and refilled it again. “Where do you plan to go, now that you have left your master?”
“Wherever there is work and a place for myself and my sweetheart.” Justin’s hand found Klaude’s under the table. She had only drank a little bit; wine was too bitter for her delicate self.
Thomas was quiet; he seemed deep in thought. “Court?”
“What, Sir?” Klaude asked.
He smiled; he had aroused the girl’s attentions, and the boy had looked up. “Yes, court. The king is in need of a master of horse, and a new maid would not hurt.”
“Court? Up north? At the capital?” gasped Klaude, frantic as a girl. “Oh, court? Where His Majesty Himself is stationed?”
Endeared by her ever-youthful charm, Thomas laughed. “Why, yes. And I could speak to His Majesty on behalf of a marriage license, for you two.”
“Have you the right to invite us? To court?” asked Justinian, cautiously. But he, too, was smiling, at how all had come to work.
“Yes,” Thomas said, with an equally careful smile. “I am sent by Prince Ardin, himself.”
*
Ardin pushed past the guard posted outside his father’s door.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed curtly.
“Ardin, I will see you when we dine tonight. He is here, right? The boy? The boy who will do our bidding?” David whispered.
“Yes. He is here and all is well and I have received word from Sir Thomas, that he is returning with a boy and a girl,” Ardin said through gritted teeth. “But, Your Majesty –”
“Thank you, Prince. I will see you when we sup with our guests tonight.” David gestured towards the door. He was a mountain of jewel-embroidered capes despite the summer heat; he was seated at a small table for two with a bottle of wine and two chalices.
“Your Majesty, I desire to know if someone… someone is living at my mother’s rooms?”
David’s face hardened. “Go away.”
“Your Majesty… they have not been in use since her death,” Ardin pushed, as he backed away from his father a bit.
“Go away, lad. Go.”
“Your Majesty, are you taking a mistress?” Ardin asked without hesitation.
“Get out!” David half-shrieked.
The blood pounding in his ears, Prince Ardin bowed tersely as he had upon his entrance. “Majesty.” And he left.
But as he turned to leave, he heard a meek knock on the back door of his father’s room. “Your Majesty, it is I, Reina, here at your request.”
*
There was no grand dinner in the dining hall, that evening; just candlelight and an intimately small table, set with few dishes, in King David’s rooms.
He had just returned from riding with Reina; they sat at the table, waiting for their other guests to arrive. With them as chaperones, were the noble Mistress Vella, daughter of a popular lord, and one of her maids-in-waiting.
“You are a wonderful horseman, Your Majesty,” Reina said, sweetly.
“You make for very good company, Sweet Reina,” David replied, merrily.
She smiled and took off the riding cape he had given her, revealing a shimmering moonstone pendant on a silver chain at her neck.
“Who gave you that?” David asked, sharply, as though fearing a rival for the maid’s heart.
“Madam LaRue,” Reina said uncomfortably. “The lady who left this morning.”
The king laughed, relieved. “Very pretty.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Will you call me David?” he asked, shyly.
“David,” Reina said, warmly. “With all my heart I have enjoyed this day with you.” This was a half-lie: Reina had enjoyed a fine day of drinking and riding in the sun, but not the company of this old and unappealing man. Some of his gentlemen were handsome and would flash her smiles, but David kept her in his hand protectively at all times.
The king could no longer resist her; he leaned in to kiss Reina’s perfectly desirable lips. She braced herself for his foul breath and filthy mouth against her own, but Vella opened the door to admit their guests just in time.
“Your Majesty.” Prince Ardin and another young man stood in the doorway. “I present Master Eric, your new master of horse.”
Eric knelt, and rose meekly at the king’s command.
“Welcome to court, Eric,” David said irritably. “Let us please all sit, and dine.” He sat at the head of the small table; Reina, Vella, and her maid sat at one side of the table, the prince and Eric at the other.
Ardin took notice of Reina instantly; he stared blankly at her, for a few moments. She looked like some sort of dark Jezebel. She did not bring her eyes down modestly; she met and matched his gaze in full. He continued to examine her, to study her: too majestic to be a harlot; so beautiful, like candy for the eye.
“Your Majesty, you have not introduced us to this lady,” Ardin said.
“This is Mistress Reina, new to court,” the king said, impatiently. He drank from his glass of ale and did not meet his son’s questioning gaze.
They ate in silence for some time, save for some conversation between the prince and his father. Eric and Reina exchanged slight smiles; she could have spent hours looking at him, but she remembered LaRue’s warning.
Soon the dishes were empty, and servants were called to haul them away. David summoned musicians so that there could be dancing, and they all stood and lined up as the first song began.
The king took Reina as his partner, although the prince had initially reached for her. He settled for Vella, and Eric took the maid; she was blushing, quite, quite pleased with her darkly attractive partner.
They danced for some time; David let go of Reina only when it was late and time for them all to retire, and he did this with reluctance.
*
“Who is she?”
Vella looked up from her embroidery. Ardin. “Majesty,” she said, confused, and rose from the couch of her rooms. “You must know, now that I will soon wed the courtier, Sir Thomas, that… we cannot…”
“I’m not here for that,” Ardin said, spitefully.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Vella said, in a small voice. “You were saying? Who is who?”
“Reina. At the dinner. Who is Reina?” the prince persisted. He picked her up by the collar of her dress. “Who is she!”
“I-I… I don’t know much,” Vella said shakily.
“If that isn’t an understatement,” grumbled Ardin. He let her go so violently that she fell back onto the floor.
“She is a commoner from the south, whose village was overrun. I don’t know much… I don’t… I am sorry, Your Majesty. She is nothing, and yet your father appears…” she hesitated, “in love. I can’t imagine why.”
Ardin laughed bitterly. “You – you – can’t imagine why.”
“No, Your Majesty. Why do you think?”
“Because she’s appealing,” the prince said, desirously, his face distant, “because she’s appealing. Because she’s beautiful.”
“You, yourself, seem… in love.”
“Maybe I am.”
*
The next couple of weeks were merry for Reina. By day she would ride with the king, bowl with him and his gentlemen, and sometimes, when his health was good, lead the hunt at his side. At night, she would dine with the king alone in his rooms, and he would shower her with jewels and hoods and cloaks and furs.
They had just finished dinner; David dismissed their two chaperones.
“What is the matter, Your Majesty?” Reina asked, puzzled.
“I… I have something to ask of you, Reina.”
“Oh, anything, Sire. Anything that I can give you, I will.”
“Reina,” David began. He reached for her hand and put it to his cheek. “I want you to be my mistress. My royal mistress.”
He held out a ring with the fattest diamond Reina had ever seen; it was like a mirror, reflecting her face in full.
“Your Majesty, David…” Reina said, hesitantly. “I am… offended.”
“Offended?” The king was puzzled. In his youth he had taken many mistresses, particularly while his late wife was pregnant with Ardin. They had never denied him, let alone said they were offended.
“Yes,” she said, demurely. “When I am in love with you, like this, and believed you loved me, too, that you desire me only as a personal whore, I am… offended.”
“A royal mistress is not a whore!” gasped David.
Reina shook her head, fake tears slithering down her cheeks. “I want to be your full lover and dear queen.”
“Know that I want you so, too. But, but… it would be… there would be… difficulties. Complications.”
“What difficulties? What complications? You are a free man!” Reina was surprised by her daringly disrespectful words, her rising ambition, and, most of all, her power over the king of Myuri.
“Just be mine!” the old man screamed. “Just be mine. Oh, God, just please be mine…”
“Your queen? Your loving queen?” Reina confirmed.
“Yes, that. Yes. I would die, my heart would break, if you were another’s,” David said breathlessly.
“Good, good. Then put that ring on my finger, will you?”
She smiled. David, King of Myuri, was good as her slave.
*
“My love,” said Thomas, as he embraced his betrothed, waiting for him at the palace gates.
Vella smiled. “Who is here, with you?”
“The Mistress Klaude and her betrothed Justinian. I have promised them both positions at His Majesty’s court,” Thomas said, warmly. “Are you aware of openings?” He ordered a page to take his horses to the stables and his carriage to the lot, and with Klaude and Justinian followed Vella to the gardens.
“Yes,” Vella said, after greeting Klaude and Justinian appropriately. “Justinian, you may join Master Eric as a master of horse, in the stables.” She extended her hand, and he thanked her and kissed it. “Klaude, the King David’s consort-to-be is in need of maids-in-waiting.”
A couple of pages arrived to take Klaude and Justinian to their rooms, and then hand-in-hand Vella and Thomas continued their walk.
“Consort-to-be?” asked Thomas. “While I was away, David proposed marriage?”
“Why, yes,” Vella said.
“To a duchess? A foreign princess?” he guessed.
Vella laughed. “To a southern whore.”
*
While Reina’s new staff of maids unpacked their belongings in the small rooms adjacent to hers, she and Klaude sat alone in her receiving rooms.
“Milady,” Klaude said warmly, “would you like to play cards?”
Reina shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“I could try to play you a song on the lute, milady, though I am not exactly well-educated in music,” Klaude offered.
“No, thank you. The king will usually go riding with me. I like to ride.”
“My betrothed works with His Majesty’s horses in the stables,” Klaude said. “He could let us ride, I am sure.”
“Oh, yes, please!” Reina gasped. “Anything to get out of these dingy rooms. Let us go… Klaude.”
Klaude smiled, and led her new friend, the to-be queen of Myuri, to the stables.
Eric and Justinian had just returned from exercising the king’s favorite horses for the celebratory hunt that was to occur the following week.
“He calls these horses ‘Thunder’ and ‘Lightning’ I am told,” Eric said with a laugh, as they returned the horses to the stables and set new beds of hay.
“Creative.” Justin smiled.
“Have you ever seen His Majesty’s bride-to-be?” Eric inquired as they changed water dishes.
“No.”
“Well, here she is.”
Justinian looked up and gasped. Klaude was there, with a dark-haired and dark-eyed and pale-skinned woman.
“The Lady Reina,” Klaude said, awkwardly. She was wearing a small gray dress and sandals, whereas Reina was adorned in a rich black riding gown, with her hair up in a matching black riding cap. She wore leather riding gloves and heeled riding boots; one could see that she was already queen in all but name.
“Lady Reina, do you wish to ride?” Justin asked, uncomfortably.
“Yes, with my maid Klaude. But I don’t know the paths very well, so I will need you to accompany me,” Reina said.
“This is but my second day at the stables, and so I don’t know the paths very well, either.” Justinian turned to Eric. “Master Eric may accompany you.”
“I would like that.” She gave Eric a suggestive little sideways smile, which he matched with one of his own.
“Can you not come?” Klaude asked, reaching for Justinian’s hand.
He kissed her little fingers. “If the Lady Reina would allow me.”
“Happily,” Reina said. “Let us all ride together.”
Four horses were saddled, and Justinian packed a basket of some fruit and wine in case they would want to stop and eat.
Justinian then lifted his little lover onto her white mare, and then mounted his own horse.
“Do you need help, milady?” Eric asked, with a laugh, as again and again Reina struggled and failed to climb onto her own mount.
“No, I need only a moment.” She tried to pull at her horse’s reins and dig a heel into the side of its saddle, only for the horse to buckle and cause her to fall back.
Eric caught her. “Let me help you,” he whispered.
“Fine. You may lift me onto my horse, but know that if I wanted to, I could have done so, myself.”
“I am sure that is so, Lady Reina, but we all want to eventually eat our dinners and go to our beds and sleep, so I will assist you.” He helped Reina onto her stallion with tender hands, and when she was up and seated, he took his sweet time sliding them off.
She smiled. “I do not appreciate your sarcasm, but I thank you.”
“I am but at your command, Milady.”
And so they set off, four beautifully youthful courtiers, fun-loving and flirtatious. Eric led the way, and, desperate to prove her competence, Reina pushed her horse to race at his side.
“I have seen you before, have I not?” asked Eric, turning to Reina and slowing down.
“Oh, yes, is that why you act so familiar with me?” Reina teased.
“I ask only for the facts, Madam. Always.”
“Well, then, to answer your question, yes,” Reina said, plainly. “At a tavern. You called me tempting, did you not?”
“I didn’t know that we would meet again.”
“Ah, but here we are and so what have you to say to me, now?”
Eric said nothing; he blushed and looked away.
“Got you,” laughed Reina.
They rode in silence for a bit, and then Eric spoke. “The same.”
“What?”
“You are tempting. And all the more so, now that I know I could never have you.”
Reina was in a state of disbelief as to what this man had just dared to say. He met her incredulous stare with a modest smile.
“Well,” Reina said, quietly. “How do you know that?”
They reached a plain of green summer grass, beside a quiet stream, and Justinian tied their horses to a tree and helped them drink the water. And then they all gathered in the soft grass for apples and oranges and strawberries and wine, before riding back to the stables.
“Klaude,” Reina said. “We can stay a little bit longer so that you may be with Justinian.” Before Klaude could reply, Reina tore away and asked Eric to come outside the stables with her.
“Yes, Milady?” Eric asked, polite as any courtier would be, to the king’s betrothed.
“I need to see you again,” Reina said, hesitantly. “Alone.”
Eric smirked. “Are you flirting with me, Lady Reina?”
“I am not,” Reina lied.
“I am saddened to hear that.”
She laughed. “I’m going to leave now, but I will come again soon.”
“Please.” Eric knelt and kissed her hand and rubbed it against his cheek.
And then Reina and Klaude were gone, leaving two men heartbroken at the royal stables.
*
That evening, Justinian and Eric supped privately at the dining room of their joint apartments.
“You seem to like the Lady Reina,” Justinian said, light-heartedly. His tongue was slightly loosened from their drinking.
Eric laughed, and thought of Reina, clearly hot for himself; she was so young and so attractive and yet betrothed to a sickly old man who would never be able to keep up with her. “She is just the king’s whore, really. She is just a whore.” He paused. “But an appealing one.”
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
“I wonder where they are, Aranea? Where the Heiji sisters are, and whatever is taking them so long?” the young new queen was pacing back and forth in her dear friend’s rooms as they supped. She was anxious; she was the Queen Kylani; she was respected and feared and beloved and hated all at the same time. Scandal and slander followed her name everywhere, and while countless would like to see the death of her, they knew she was an undefeatable duelist and impeccably brilliant at war, at politics, at everything; they knew that in her marvelous prime she was simply unstoppable, invincible.
“They have just entered the city and are delayed by traffic, Kylani,” Aranea replied, calmly. But of course Kylani was impatient. The notorious Heiji sisters were on their way to grant her immortality; they were the last magicians with such power in all the land. How could anyone wait patiently, for something so truly great?
“You will call me, ‘Your Majesty,’ Aranea,” Kylani replied, harshly. “I am a queen, you know. I am the queen of the city-state of Espiarus. My invincible armies are moving in to that useless, oversized farm Autumnrain. They are moving in towards the enormous market, Ra Fay. They are advancing to Eurandala, the place with an army, but no government. And then they will go and fight to the death with the King David in Congrella, the only place that may be able to some slight challenge. And then all will be mine.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Aranea replied, coolly. She had called the ambitious young queen by name since childhood, since she was a little princess. Only she, and perhaps Warren, had been allowed to call her Kylani with no title, and now this small privilege had been stripped from her.
“You know what they often say, Aranea? They say that I compare to the Queen Myuri I.”
“Do they, Your Majesty? In my humble opinion, there is no one that lives or has ever once, that comes even remotely near comparing to you.”
“Yes, and you know why that is so? Because by tomorrow, I will be immortal. I will be youthful and beautiful and glorious and almighty as I am now, in one thousand years, in one million.”
“She had been immortal, too, Ky – Your Majesty. But to be immortal in Myuri means that you should live forever, unless something like poison or a stabbing should intervene,” Aranea pointed out. “She was poisoned, it is believed.”
“Well, she was a fool to have consumed something that she did not grow from the Earth and prepare with her own hand; she was a fool to trust, if not others, than one other person. I won’t make that mistake, Aranea. I won’t make any mistakes. Watch me.”
“I know that you will not, Your Majesty. You are perfect,” Aranea said aloud, but thought to herself: Assassination nor illness will be your undoing, but your own vanity.
They ate in silence for a few minutes; they sipped their wine, ate their bread and fruit that Kylani had insisted upon preparing for them herself, and had some fine, small conversation for a bit, until a young page appeared in the doorway.
“The Lord Warren desires to see the Lady Aranea,” he announced, after kneeling before Kylani.
The queen’s smile vanished.
Aranea flushed.
“Tell him that the Lady Aranea cannot see him. She is supping with the queen,” Kylani alas replied, in an uncharacteristically warm tone.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He bowed and then backed out of the room.
“So, Aranea. Do you see Warren, in private, beyond palace banquets? Do you see him often?” she said, coolly. “Hmm?”
“Your Majesty – ”
“Surely not, when you know how I feel for him? How I have desired him all my years? Surely not, when you know that to see him would be to betray me, and to betray the queen is treason, and to commit treason against the queen is to lose your head?” Kylani pressed on. And then she sighed. “I beg your honesty, Aranea.”
My honesty, you beg for? I have known him all my life, before he came to court, before you ever laid eyes on him and shallowly came to covet him. His family has been dear to mine, and I have always been dear to him, but it has only been a short time, that he has come to be dear to me, Aranea thought. But aloud she said: “Then here it is, Your Majesty. I have seen him, and he has proposed marriage to me. But I have decided against it because I wish to stand Your Majesty’s undying friend, and I know that surely Your Majesty has other marital plans for me.”
“Thank you, Aranea. So you have formally declined him?”
“I have not seen him in some time. I had planned to do so, our next meeting.”
“Don’t fret. I am your friend, Aranea. I will handle this, for you. I will handle this now.”
The queen walked past a small party of guards into the receiving rooms of Warren’s apartments, where he was dining with his gentlemen.
She dismissed them all in a single hand-gesture.
Warren came to kneel before her. “Your Majesty,” he breathed into her fingers.
The last time Kylani had seen him was the night of which she murdered her father, was the night he broke her heart, was the night he denied her.
Now, she stood before him Espiarus’ crowned queen.
Now, she stood before him not a devastated child but his superior, a divine monarch – and in just a number of days.
“Go back to your seat,” she ordered, imperiously.
He did as she bid him, and poured a silver goblet to the brim with wine for her. “You were supping with the Lady Aranea, Your Majesty?”
“Yes. Now, about her, Warren. So you proposed marriage to her, yes?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“She has declined, Warren. She does not wish to wed you. I am here to tell you so.”
“Your Majesty…”
“Why ever would you propose marriage to her, so soon after denying my feelings?” Kylani burst, regardless of the party of guards within earshot.
“The proposal… it had absolutely nothing to do with how I feel for the Lady Aranea. She is my dear friend. It was my family. Yes, my family. As you know, Aranea’s clan is a strong ally to us. They hadn’t a clue of your feelings for me. They forced me to propose to her, although in my heart, there is no other I wish for more than you,” Warren cried out. It was all lies though. Passionate lies. To be at the Espiarus court was to instantly learn how to lie and lie very well so to please your superiors.
“Oh, you desire me? Then explain why you refused me, that night?”
“Because, Your Majesty! Do you not see!” Warren replied, “I thought you wished from me but a small romance, perhaps to last just a summer. But I had wanted of you much more; I had wanted you to be my wife, nothing less. And so I declined.”
“You want me… your wife?” Kylani breathed, astonished. Her face reddened.
“Yes, Your Majesty. I do. But it could not be. I am far below your station.” Warren feigned rue. Kylani had a most alluring body, that he could not deny, and a pretty enough face, but he valued the realness in Aranea and that the way she viewed the world was not purely centered around herself. He felt terrible that he should lie of his feelings for her, lie they did not exist. He felt terrible that he should deny her.
“I am Espiarus’ queen and I shall do as I please,” the queen replied simply. “We shall be engaged.”
“I-I am to be your king-consort?”
Kylani shifted uneasily. “We will be engaged. When we have a more secure position in this war and the time is right, you will marry me and be my consort, Warren.”
And then she left for her bed.
And Warren left for Aranea’s.
Aranea dismissed all the maids of her small household, and brought Warren to her privy chambers.
“Kylani has seen me,” she said, softly. “She told me all that you said. Warren, you denied me.”
“You denied me, Aranea,” Warren argued.
“I did, Warren, I did. But now that I have been forced into denying you, I’ve nothing. Now that you’ve denied me of your own will and selfishness, you are to be king.” They were quiet for a bit, sitting at the foot of her bed. “Now leave me Warren. You can either have my body, my heart, my love – or her crown. You cannot have both.”
*
“Ah, Ardin.” David greeted his son who standing in the doorway of his bedchamber.
“My Lord Father,” Prince Ardin knelt.
“You did not attend last night’s council. Were you in town?”
“I was, actually. To pick up gossip for Your Majesty.”
“Thank you. Good news? Bad news? Out with it,” David said.
“Your Majesty, the Queen Kylani – ”
“Queen of what? Queen of what, boy!” David cried out, in a sudden flare of heated rage. “Of Myuri? Of my Myuri?”
“No, Your Majesty. Queen of Espiarus. The city of Espiarus, and nothing more.” Ardin lowered his eyes and sunk to the ground. And, of course, being a vain prince, he did so reluctantly.
“Nothing more,” breathed David. “I am king of the city-state, Congrella, the capital of Myuri, and thus divine and true king of the kingdom Myuri. How dare she claim what God knows is mine?”
“She is a fool, my Lord Father. The Queen Kylani is a fool, and she will be shown her place when you defeat her,” Ardin said, reassuringly. And then he stood, and looked up at his father, at his old, pitiable father. He looked at this man, King David, and thought of the portrait he had seen earlier, of the young and beautiful and glorious Queen Kylani – there was no comparison, between these two rulers. None at all.
“You are right, Son. Now do tell me what you have heard.”
“She is engaged to one of her courtiers, Your Majesty. The Lord Warren. He is noble-born, yes, wealthy enough with some estates. But he is without an army or extreme influence, and so their betrothal is thought to be a love-match.”
David laughed scornfully. “A love-match? A love-match, for the heartless, soulless, loveless queen, Kylani?”
“Yes, Father. Merchants that have done trade in the city, of recent, say it is so, and as do my spies.”
“When will they be wed?”
“The queen states that they will be wed when she has a more secure position in this war.”
“Anything else?” sighed David.
“Why, plenty more, Your Majesty,” Ardin said, with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. “The city Autumnrain has surrendered to the Queen Kylani’s army.”
“I cannot blame them, for it. I cannot. Rather than to see each of his people cut down; women and children – Kylani cares not. She would cut down any in her way.”
“And I have some quite frightening news, my Lord Father. The Heiji Sisters…”
“No…” breathed David. “God, what of them? Tell me that they are dead? That those foul creatures are dead. Tell me they are dead!”
“They have sworn their loyalties to the Queen Kylani. They support her in this war, as the rightful queen of Myuri. They believe everything you own – and more – is hers.”
The king paled. “I thought they had no interest in politics.”
“They do not. God knows, if they did, if those three vile witches did, the throne would already be theirs. But at any rate, they have just arrived in Espiarus to serve the Queen Kylani faithfully.”
“What could this mean, lad?”
“Many things. They could give her immortality, conjure up an army of invincible soldiers out of thin air, for her.” Ardin paused. “Summon the Queen Myuri I…”
“No! Gods, what are we to do, Ardin? If all you say is true, then Kylani is truly undefeatable, and my army of good, honest men is worthless!”
“Queen Myuri, Your Majesty,” the prince whispered. “And I have just the way to get her.”
“That is?”
“I have sent a trusted companion, Sir south to search for a couple of capable persons, with nothing else to live for. I have told him to invite them to court, and when the time is right they will be given their task and dispatched to…”
“To where? My boy, you cannot mean…”
“Mount Ascendon. The fabled Mount Ascendon, the last distract of magic in all the realm, the birthplace of our kingdom Myuri,” Ardin finished, grandly.
“When I was a boy, an explorer travelled to it. He told no one where it was; some did not believe him but then he offered a small rock from the mountains as proof. Oh, it was fine, it was magical. I remember day it was brought to my father. But then he died, the explore Manox. He died and he did not leave any maps.”
“He did. He left one map, to his apprentice – his apprentice, who I met today, and who gave me this.” Ardin held out a worn, rolled-up sheet before his father. He spread it out across David’s bed.
The prince watched as his father’s eyes welled with tears. “Right away, my boy. I want an able party mustered up and sent there, right away. I want the Queen Myuri I. I want her to help me. I know she will. She will have Kylani. She will hate to hear that the people compare Kylani to her. She will side with me; she will save us from all of this!”
“I will, Father. I swear to God, that I will.”
“How long does a journey from Congrella to the Mount Ascendon take, Son?”
“A year or so. Twelve moons; perhaps less… perhaps more. And I am told that its magic will be more ‘potent’ should it rain… perhaps a summer storm, an autumn shower, a winter rage, a spring drizzle…”
“I am so tired. Leave me, Son. We will discuss this later. Perhaps you should search this very city for a competent lad your own age, fit for the job, on the morrow.”
“As Your Majesty bids me. Take care; do sleep well.” And then Ardin knelt. “Long Live my father, King David, true king of Myuri.”
He stood, and opened the door, surprised to find his father’s page waiting outside.
“Your Majesty,” the boy cried out. “I must see you.”
“Howe, it is very late and I would like to sleep.” David leaned back into a sea of pillows at the head of his bed.
“I am told by the guard that two women in this city are of a village in the south that was captured by an Espiarus army,” the page said, breathlessly. “Madame LaRue, and Mistress Reina. You must see them at dawn tomorrow, Your Majesty. Oh, Your Majesty!”
*
A servant boy brought Eric his breakfast: some bread and a bit of cool wine for dipping.
Eric sat up and shook his head sleepily. “Pray take that to the Mistress Dele, in the other room. She is our dear guest.”
“Oh, but Sir, she is gone. She left earlier this morning,” the boy replied uneasily. He watched his master flush.
“Oh… oh, of course,” Eric stammered; he cleared his throat. “Did she take with her a baby?”
“No, Sir. She left the child crying in the other room.”
“Thank you,” Eric said, and he waved the boy off. He quickly dressed himself and poured the wine down his raspy throat and hurried outside and down the hall to where Dele had slept.
A young maid, a new one, he supposed, that the cooks had probably hired, was cleaning and dusting as though a wench at an inn. She was quite pretty but Eric took no notice. He ran to the bed and picked up the little thing wrapped in old sheets and lying about, and smothered it in kisses and hot tears.
“I love you, my heart, my Rynn,” he breathed into the baby’s little neck. And then he turned to the wide-eyed maid.
“I want a fine crib made for her, at once. I want good sheets for her, and I want a tailor to come and fit her for some new clothes today, so that she does indeed appear the daughter of a wealthy man, which she is. And I want a wet nurse for her, one that is educated, and when the time comes, can teach her something of the world.”
The maid nodded. “I will take company and go into town at once.”
Another servant hurried in through the open door, his face bright. “Sir, a party of men sent by His Majesty the Prince Ardin, is at the door. They seek you.”
Eric set the baby down gently and followed the boy to the front doors of his house. All of his servants were crowded about and whispering.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Eric said simply. “How can I be of service?”
“The prince says that he would be obliged to come and sup with you, this evening, if only you would welcome him into your household,” the captain of the royal party replied.
“Oh, His Majesty is always, always welcome. Tell him to please come.”
The men began back to the palace to tell the Prince Ardin, but Eric stopped them. “Why ever does His Majesty so suddenly wish to see me?”
And then the captain leaned close to him and whispered, “Sir, I do not know. It is a secret.”
*
The door of Kylani’s receiving rooms was locked shut behind three dark figures, and a herald.
“Your Majesty, the Heiji Ladies,” the herald announced, and he bowed and exited.
The queen set aside the challis of ale she had been sipping; she stood, Aranea rising uncertainly at her side.
“Ah, the Heiji sisters,” Kylani breathed imperiously. She flushed, trying to hide her shock, her excitement, her nerve at seeing them. Three such pretty figures; small and delicate and fine, and yet dangerous, murderous…
From left to right, they were Aurella Heiji, she was little more than darkness and a full, voluptuous body; Etsuko Heiji – she was night and day, she was an angel and a witch; she was so terribly beautiful, and dripping with an unearthly allure. If Kylani was not so mesmerized by the girl’s goddess-like presence, she would be in a most dreadful, envious rage. Her vision did not wander from Etsuko; she did not turn to examine Zelda Heiji, small and used to being overlooked; Zelda had no identity: she was just the Little Heiji, a creature of her two older sisters.
They knelt before her in perfect unison. They breathed, “Your Majesty,” in perfect unison.
“Come now. I can scarcely wait to live my forever,” Kylani said, after recovering her wit.
*
Reina and LaRue followed their escort towards the king’s apartments, just down the hall.
“You will kneel before him until he raises you; you will keep your heads down, and you will not speak unless spoken to,” the captain of the escort prompted them. And then he looked at Reina with some coolness. “And you will be proper and mannerly and respectful.”
“Of course, Sir. No more and no less than you,” Reina replied.
*
Klaude had come to enjoy her new life.
She had been given a place in the maids’ tent, although she would slip away in the night to Justinian’s; they would sit before a fire in the other’s arms talking, and then, sometimes, they would make hazy, sleepy love.
In the morning she would cook with the other maids, and break her fast; they would watch the children, and then Justin would leave his work in the marketplace very carefully so as to not be seen, and come to her. They would walk about town for a little bit; they would stop for a small bite and a drink of ale and then up against a wall or a tree they would steal a kiss or perhaps a bit more and return to their duties.
Both waited for night to come.
Their subtle courting went unnoticed by all but one person.
“Are you Klaude?”
Klaude had just stepped out of her tent and was, of course, leaving for Justin’s, when a girl pulled up before her. “Yes, and you?”
“Ashleigh,” the girl replied. “It can be dangerous, here, in the night. I wouldn’t want you roaming about on your own. Wherever are you going?”
“The pot,” Klaude lied.
“I can come with you,” Ashleigh said, “Klaude.”
“Thank you for your concern, but…”
“I hear you work very hard. Would you like to be my personal maid? Be with me always; be with me at all times?” She paused. “In the night, at my side…”
“There are other maids that work much harder than myself.”
“Oh, of course: Because you are always with my betrothed, with his mouth in yours.” Ashleigh smiled sweetly. “So you will be my maid?”
*
“Just do exactly as I do,” LaRue whispered, as she and Reina began into the king’s receiving rooms. “Kneel to him once we enter. Kneel to him.”
“He is just a king, not a god,” Reina replied, with a scoff.
“He is a king, and so you must treat him like a god.”
They spotted him at once, the King David, sitting tall and grand about a gold framed couch and draped in robes of fine gold cloth embroidered with fat jewels. On his head of graying copper curls rested a gold crown encrusted with rubies. So large, so golden, so… godly.
At once, LaRue threw her knees to the floor, her forehead to the floor. “Majesty.”
Reina remained standing; she was half shaking.
“Get down,” hissed the old woman, under her breath. “Gracious, get down.”
The three were alone in the room, and for a few painful moments, they were completely silent.
David stared at Reina like a man enchanted, spellbound. His eyes were wide and he opened his mouth several times to speak, but nothing came out. And then, Reina broke the silence and threw herself at the king’s legs, weeping, panting.
“Your Majesty, we have come to humbly beg for your mercy. I have nothing but a broken heart and a broken soul, but I give both to you,” she whimpered.
“And I accept both,” David replied, warmly. “Do have a seat… Mistress Reina.” He looked at LaRue. “And you, as well, Madam.”
Reina and LaRue seated themselves awkwardly at the couch across from the king.
“So you say that your southern village, Mira, was taken by a small Espiarus army?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” LaRue said. “A small one, no doubt come to take our little village as a war camp. I don’t doubt more troops will be sent.”
“How long have you been travelling?”
“Perhaps a week.”
The king quieted; his gaze returned to Reina: fiercely dark and full and refined. He’d only just met her then, and yet David desired her so greatly that he would give up his crown, if only just to touch her, stroke her, at that very moment in time.
“Your Majesty? Will you send an army to our village? In defense of the innocents and before the camp can develop?”
David recovered his wit, and laughed harshly. “Innocents? As if Kylani would spare any. Perhaps she is all the more humane, for it.” He paused. “And, at any rate, my army has better things to do, than march down to a village so small and unimportant that it appears on no maps.”
“It was not unimportant!” LaRue gasped, shaken by the king’s cruelty. And then she quickly added, “Your Majesty.”
“Before this, I hadn’t known it existed,” David said.
LaRue opened her mouth to speak in her village’s defense, but Reina, her bout of weeping finished, beat her to it. “Your Majesty, it was my home.”
“Oh… oh, Mistress Reina. I apologize if I have offended you. I am very gracious to you, both, for your good loyalty to me,” David stammered.
“Your Majesty could never offend me,” Reina whispered. “I am a Myurian. I am yours forever.”
Silence.
LaRue studied the king’s face. He desires her.
“Ah, now then. Madam,” he turned to the older woman. “I give you Willow House. You will have plenty of companions there. They will be good to you. I wish you merriness.”
“I thank you, Your Majesty. But of the Mistress Reina?”
He turned to Reina, and smiled. “This vivacious young thing belongs at my court. I will give you apartments, near my own. You will be very welcome here.”
“Majesty!” gasped Reina.
“Oh, Your High, High, Highness… but due to the invasion on our village, she is just an orphan. And she has no knowledge of court, or court politics… or…”
David laughed heartily. “Few at my court do.” He clasped his hands together and turned to Reina. “You need no knowledge of anything to be welcome, at my court. You need only the king’s favor.”
“And do I have it?” Reina breathed. Her voice had a seductive tinkling to it.
“Yes, Mistress.” He paused and looked her over. “You do.”
*
Eric’s cooks had put together a fine dinner of several light courses and good wine from the cellar.
His servants set the table well; they lay a gold cloth on the seat at the head, and plenty of chairs had been laid out although Eric suspected he and the prince would be dining alone.
And he set a little place at the table for Rynn.
The Prince Ardin soon arrived, and with little ceremony he took his seat at the head of the table, four guards standing at each corner of his chair. “Good evening, Master Eric.”
Eric knelt. “Your Majesty.”
“Do rise and take your seat. Let us dine. I am very happy that you should have me here, tonight.”
“I am deeply honored by your presence, my lord Prince,” Eric replied, humbly. “Will these gentlemen of yours be dining with us?”
“Oh, no, Master Eric. I should think they have already supped. I hope their being here does not offend you; I am a prince and I must always be safe.”
“Of course, of course!” gasped Eric. “But I can assure you that no harm will befall you, while you are here in my household. I would guard you with my own life!”
“Ah, but you needn’t. I have these good sirs.” Ardin brought a goblet of wine to his lips and kept it there, sipping and sighing with delight.
“So Eric,” he began. He gazed about the room and then stopped, stopped dead, when he spotted a little infant girl. “You… you have… a child?”
“Yes, yes. And oh, isn’t she just the finest thing?” sighed Eric, dreamily, and then he recovered his manners and quickly added, “Your Majesty.”
“Yes, yes. Very fine. Very pretty. But… I hadn’t known you had a daughter…” mumbled Ardin. He would not just leave her. He clearly adores her. He would not just leave her to do my bidding, to risk his life and do my bidding, the prince thought to himself, anxiously. And yet my father and I are so terribly desperate…
“Your Majesty,” Eric interjected, awkwardly, “I do wish you’d explain to me why you have so honored me this night, by coming to my household to sup? In truth, I hadn’t known you were even aware of my very humble existence.”
“I am always hearing your name, Master Eric. It is always on the lips of the ladies of court,” Ardin said. “And you are a young and good war veteran and land owner.”
“Your Majesty, I am so honored. But pray tell me; I am so curious! Why have you come to see me?”
You wouldn’t believe me; you are fool to ask! “I had come… I had wanted… I had wanted to invite you to court, Master Eric. Yes, to court. But you have a child, and the palace is not at all a place for a child; or at least not a royal child.”
“A pity,” sighed Eric, although he cared little. He would much prefer to spend the next twenty years in that very house with his dear, dear, daughter, his dear, dear, daughter that was a princess to him.
“You would have apartments and wealth and title. We could be dear friends. I would do you favors, perhaps you could do some, for myself…”
“Always, Your Majesty,” Eric said.
“Royal child,” breathed Ardin. So desperate, we are. “That daughter of yours…”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
The prince hesitated. Myuri I. “I’ve reconsidered. Oh, please! Say you will come to court! Take your daughter – yes, you may take your daughter and I will bestow upon her all sorts of royal honors!”
“Your Majesty, I-I –”
“Please, please, Master Eric. You can’t even imagine how gruesome Myuri’s situation is; you can’t even imagine how much you can help. Know that I would do anything for you, for your daughter, if only, if only… at some time in the future, you would ”
Eric hesitated. “Your Majesty, I would do anything for you.” He paused. “I would die for Myuri.”
Ardin smiled. Good, for you may indeed.
*
“Klaude!”
She smiled at the voice calling her name; she turned around at once. “Hello, Justinian.” Klaude made out his darkly handsome figure in the blackness of the tent of wine barrels.
Within a heartbeat he was standing before her; his warm breath grazed the skin of her neck, enticed her senses, quickened the beating of her heart. “Here for a drink, at night?”
“No… I…”
“I miss you terribly. I never see you anymore. You don’t come at night and you’re never with the maids in the day,” Justinian whispered.
“The merchant’s daughter took me as her personal maid.”
He frowned. “I hadn’t known such a position existed.”
“I wish it did not.” Klaude reached out and touched his naked arm. “I wish that I could have you,” she breathed.
“Is Ashleigh cruel to you?” Justin gasped. He took a lock of her crimson hair and brought it to his lips; he took her in his arm and brought her to the back of the tent, behind barrels of wine.
“Yes, and with good reason! She is so in love with you, and she has seen us together. We are not subtle enough, my love.”
“We shouldn’t have to be. I should be able to love you, like this, before the world. The kingdom should know that Myuri’s sweetest maid is mine, and I am hers,” Justin whispered.
“Don’t say that. You know it can’t be so. Not when you’re betrothed to her.”
“I want to marry you,” he persisted. “Not her.”
“You can’t!”
“You don’t want to, Klaude? You don’t want to marry me?”
“You know I am in love with you,” she whispered. He sat down and took her in his lap, and she brought her head up and brushed his firm chin slightly with her lips.
“We’ve only two choices, Klaude, and I leave the decision to you. We can stay here and never so much as look at the other, again; this would be very pitiless of you, as you would be condemning me to a loveless marriage to a woman better suited to be the devil’s wife,” Justin offered.
Klaude laughed a little bit, stirring in his hand. “Of course not. I want you for myself.”
“Or we can run away together, in a little bit – at twilight, and marry and be happy like this, forever. I have plenty of money saved and could easily find employment, elsewhere.”
“That sounds difficult,” Klaude sighed.
“It will be. But is the truest of love not worth some difficulties?”
“Justin…” she breathed. “Then I want to. I want to run away with you and be happy. You’re the first true thing in my life; I could never let you go.”
He smiled. “Know that I feel as though my whole life, before finding and meeting you, has been the search for you.”
Klaude stood and took a bottle of wine from one of the barrels. “Then I’ll go and bring this wine to my mistress. I’ll pack my things and when she sleeps I’ll come to you. And we’ll leave.”
“Yes. Yes, perfect.” Justinian stood. “Then I will see you soon.”
“Yes, but…” Klaude hesitated; she turned to face him; she reached for him.
“But?”
“I need you right now… I just… I need you. As wife needs husband…”
He brought his head down, brought his mouth down with firm passion on her own. “My love,” he breathed, drawing back and then kissing her again. His hand slipped skillfully from her neck to her flank; he helped free her of the bodice of her dress, helped her shift slither down her chest. His lips, his mouth kissed, lapped at her breasts. With a small moan of desire, she brought herself down to meet his mouth, and then he pushed her to the ground and installed himself atop. His hand crept up her skirts; she laughed and sighed and panted, she pushed and pulled and reached for him.
They shared a final kiss, a final kiss that set Klaude’s mouth afire and then she pushed him away with renewed strength, fixed her dress and her hair, took the bottle of wine and left the tent for her mistress’, as though she hadn’t been in the arms of her beloved, making hot, passionate love just moments before.
*
“More wine, for the Lady Heiji!” Warren leaned back into the couch of his receiving rooms; his arm coiled itself around Aranea’s shoulders, but she tore herself away.
On the couch across them sat the three Heiji sisters.
“Is the queen resting?” Aurella held out her chalice for the servant to fill.
“Yes. She has been in her bed for some time,” Aranea said. She drew her own glass to her lips.
“Good. She ought to rest.”
“But why ever? When she has a whole eternity to rest?” Warren turned to Aranea, who returned his warm gaze with a glare.
“Because the process of granting her with immortality may be too strong for her body, at first. She needs to rest.”
“Kylani – I mean, Her Majesty – has a very strong body,” Aranea argued.
“Even so. As you know, we three are immortal. We are not human. We have been alive since the reign of the Queen Myuri I. We are three persons bound together; we are three bodies and one soul, one life. A small dose of our blood can grant any immortality. All we did was give Her Majesty the queen a little bit of it,” Zelda said, with a shrug and a wide, vain smile.
They were all quiet for a little bit.
“Incredible,” Aranea breathed.
“We are incredible. We are Heiji.” Etsuko tossed locks of golden hair, which Aranea swore had been black just a couple of hours ago, back, and smiled that dashingly alluring smile of hers.
“It’s late,” Warren said. “We will take you to your rooms.”
“I will take them to their rooms. You can go to the queen’s. I’m sure she wants her dear betrothed.”
With some reluctance, Warren drew the key to Kylani’s bedchamber from his long sleeve, and opened the door before him.
She was sitting up in her bed, as though waiting for him. “Oh, Warren,” Kylani breathed, her voice shaking with desire.
“Your Majesty.” He came to her bed and she tore his robes from his body.
“Have the Heiji sisters been properly accommodated?” she inquired, her palms smoothed against his chest.
“Yes,” Warren said, hesitantly lying down beside her.
“Oh, just think of it. I will live forever. Myuri will be mine forever,” she sighed. “Forever.”
Warren was quiet for a little bit; he was thinking. “I won’t be with you, forever, Kylani. Will you… miss me?”
She turned to him, but when she did not reply, he continued. “Will you find a new king? A new love? And when he dies, another? Another, and another, and another, till you have scarcely a memory of your first love? The one who loved you best?”
“Oh, Warren…”
“Have you ever thought that I want you, forever, too?”
“Warren!”
“Just a bit of their blood,” he breathed into her neck, “and forever I am yours.”
“I love you, Warren…”
“Then won’t you speak to the Heiji sisters on my behalf?”
“I…I…”
He silenced her with his mouth, kissing her, caressing his head to her own with fake passion. “Consider it, my love. Consider it for me…”
“I can’t live without you…” his mouth stopped hers once again. They withdrew to breathe, “I must have you…” He kissed her again, and she drew away: “Forever.”
*
“Sir, you dropped this.” Justinian turned around. A man held out a leather bound composition book.
“The lady’s.” He took it in his hand and returned it to Klaude. Other maids at the merchant’s camp had been teaching her to read and write.
She blushed a bit, took it under her arm, and turned to the man. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” The young man stared at them awkwardly for a bit. “Would you like to sit with me?” He was sitting at a table in the tavern inn, lavishly covered in fine dishes and wine.
Klaude turned to Justin; he nodded his head and they seated themselves beside the man. “What are you called?” Justin asked, accepting a bit of wine.
“Thomas,” he replied, “of His Majesty’s court.”
*
It was morning; Kylani was admitted into the Heiji sisters’ rooms.
“What are you laughing at?” she asked, with a frown.
“Not you, Your Majesty. Come, you must hear this,” squealed Zelda. The sisters were huddled by a window; they looked like three goddesses with the light shining down on them.
Kylani came, and waited expectantly.
“We hear that the King David is half mad with desperation to defeat you,” Aurella said.
“Yes, but he cannot.”
“They say he will be starting an expedition to find the Mount Ascendon,” Zelda continued.
“Why ever?”
Etsuko leaned in close, and whispered, “To summon Myuri I herself. To summon Queen Myuri I.”
At this, the sisters burst into a fit of laughter.
Kylani paled; she said nothing. She was perfectly silent. And then they could not believe her words: “I want her. I want Queen Myuri. Go to Ascendon and get me her.”
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
It was a dark and moonless night. There was no wind, as there can be none when the trees are afraid to breathe. No creature stirred; no prairie vermin, nor gentle bird of flight, dared flee the safety of his den. All was ominously still.
In his marble chambers, King David of Congrella sat erect on his throne. He had been a handsome soul, once; but by now, his graying eyes had seen the bloodshed of thousands of battles fought, the deaths of millions of innocent people. And so now he closed them, for many a heartbeat, before the swollen, creased eyelids parted once more. His square jaw was set firmly as he took in the vast expanse of black land before him outside his window, quiet and unmoving and standstill. The king was alone in his throne room save one other person, his only son and heir, Prince Ardin.
The young prince kneeled, tensely, in earnest by the side of his father’s massive throne. The otherwise pleasant features of his face were pinched downwards, twisted horribly and ugly. Then the king spoke, and the prince closed his eyes and touched his forehead to the tiled floor, and listened.
“I would have never expected something like this from Napoleon’s daughter.” David rose; thick blockish hands clasped behind his back, and came to stand at the window. “He was a good friend to me. I was deeply saddened by his death.”
“My lord, the Queen Kylani inherited her father’s natural talent. Remember what they used to say of his Excellency the Lord Napoleon: ‘If the man wished to grow wings and fly amongst the birds, then not even the angels of heaven in all their glory could match him.’”
The king shook his head slowly; wisely. “It is not her capacity that astounds me. Her power, her cunning, her skill; all I foresaw.”
“Then over what do you puzzle, father?”
King David was motionless and silent for so long that Ardin began to wonder if his time to inherit the crown had at last come. Then he turned around, very sharply, and looked his son so intently in the eyes that it took all of Ardin not to look away.
“Not her ability, but her motives. Her reasons. What she’s done.” He laughed then, a terrible, frightening laugh: dry and cracking with age, and bordering on hysteria. “Come hither, my son.” He coughed now, perhaps exhausted from his earlier laughter.
Ardin picked himself up off the marble flooring and, his arms crossed behind him respectfully, obeyed. He stood with his father in silence for a long time; before David finally spoke, he counted seven trees beginning to wake up in the grove below. The sky was now a paler black, shrouded in part by milky clouds, with pink-and-blue veins of breaking dawn threshed through it. The first songbird of the morning now sang its song, from somewhere far away and high above; a lyrical, beautiful chirruping that seemed somehow sad. The prince blinked eyes the color of burnt sandalwood. “My lord…”
“Look.” David’s voice, louder and older than time itself, overpowered Ardin’s. “I want you to take a good look at our country, before that barbarian queen destroys it. There she is, boy…Myuri. In all her beauty and all her glory.” His voice was now taking on a strange face; it was lowering, both in volume and pitch, becoming glazed over and slightly hypnotic in nature, as if he was channeling an old side of himself lost long ago, that he was only now discovering had been within him all along. “To the north lies the city-state of Ra Fay, the center of all Myurian commerce. In the south sits Eurandala, where the young men who will grow to protect their native Myuri are born and raised and bred and trained.
“Over in the west, rests the city-state of Ara, a haven offering a sedate, civilian life for those who are ending their journeys; for our loyal soldiers finished at last with their lives of battle and bloodlust. In the east lies Autumnrain, the farmers’ Promised Land, with its rich soil and luscious earth and rolling hills. And then there is the capital of Myuri, our own city, my son; our Congrella, buried in the heart of the country, in the center of all the five cities.”
Ardin listened, intently, head bowed, to his father’s words. He had felt a strange poetic rhythm overtake him, soothe him, assuage his worries and troubles and concerns, until now. It was not like his father to make a mistake, especially not about something of relevance to Myuri. “My lord,” he interrupted, quietly; courteously. “What of the sixth city? What of Espiarius?”
The king’s face contorted; soured like old milk left out in the sun and forgotten. “Espiarius is no longer a part of us. Kylani has turned her back on her country. She serves only herself now, and her city follows her in this shame.” His face darkened, the old but sharply angled features fading now, lost in the blackening shadows that darted furtively across David’s mighty visage. “How can a single woman stand alone against four lords, and myself, king of the whole Myuri, and triumph?” The king slammed a fist down onto the windowsill. It quavered pathetically and was still. “The only explanation for that is her being Napoleon’s daughter. None could match him. He was a higher being. Not meant for this plane of existence.”
Ardin spoke now, quietly. “Kylani matched him.”
Silence fell, thick and almost indistinguishable in the gloom that hung over the chamber almost tangibly.
“There has been but one person in history who could oppose Kylani and stand a chance. “ David stroked his chin with a slow calmness.
Ardin looked up sharply. “Surely you do not mean-“
“But I do. The one and only.”
“Father, she was a tyrant. Her death was a joyous time for our nation!”
David closed his gray eyes unhurriedly. “It must be done. It cannot be helped.” Ardin was scornful enough to momentarily forget his manners. “Oh sure,” he snorted, wryly, “it’s that easy. It’s suicide. The only people willing to try to accomplish that kind of thing are…are…the human scum of society. Those with no other options. The dreamers. The trapped. The mad. The misfits. You’ll never find a healthy man going anywhere in life willing to risk his hide on this damned journey of yours. It’s never been done! You can’t wake Myuri up, it…it…” He hesitated, at a loss for words. “The mad, I tell you. The foolish. The dreamers…”
David fixed his son with a cold, paralyzing gaze. “Then those we will find. Someone must do it.” He coughed, drily; hatefully. “I would go myself, with good will. But I am not as young as I once was, and you-” here he turned to regard Ardin with what appeared to be spite, or something along that boulevard “- are clearly too much a coward to try yourself. So we will seek the mad and the crazed and the nothings of society if we must, if only to find a party willing to try.”
Ardin stood speechless for several moments. Then at last he spoke.
“But… how? How? There is no magic in Myuri. None.”
“Mount Ascendon.”
A silence.
“We will dispatch some trusted courtiers to search for this party. We will have them brought to court. All will be secret, until the time is right.”
“Secrecy,” David repeated, softly, to himself. “Secrecy.”
“Yes, my lord, yes. Secrecy.”
*
Klaude woke drenched in her own sweat, with a circle of housewives assembled around her, and the boy from the night before. She felt herself melting beneath a thick blanket, felt as though her own perspiration would swallow her whole.
“Klaude,” the boy said.
“Help… I’m absolutely burning.”
He offered her his hand, which she accepted and used to prop up her light little body.
The women gathered Klaude’s sweat-soaked sheets to be washed and then waited for the boy to say something.
“Fetch her some dress, and draw her a bath, please, my ladies,” he ordered, simply. He pulled himself a bit closer to Klaude, and breathed into her neck, “Although as it is, I find your scent quite, quite alluring.”
Klaude stripped her cloak, and then dipped her little feet into the cool waters of the brook. She looked over her body with disdain; she examined her skin to find that most of it was raw purple and dirt-stained.
One of the ladies coaxed her into the bath and tenderly washed her body with scented soap; she wet Klaude’s hair and brushed it neatly. She then helped her out of the waters to dry, and offered her a light summer dress.
“Thank you,” Klaude said.
Her clumsy little fingers laced the low bodice of the pretty blue summer dress. It was so simple, but fit her body so very well, which surprised her as the housewives that had tended to her were all quite large. Its lace hems reached a bit above her knees, its sleeves fitting neatly at her elbows. “It is lovely, thank you.”
And then they helped her back to the boy’s tent, as there was no other place for her, yet.
He was chattering amongst a couple other men while sorting through several baskets, but he sent them away upon her entrance.
“They must have asked you to rest?”
“Yes,” Klaude replied slowly. “Who are they?”
“Wives of some friends of mine. And you are feeling better?”
She nodded and let him guide her to the low mattress. “Still tired… I… what are you called?”
“Justin,” he answered simply, “Justin. My name is Justinian, but you have asked what I am called, and I am called Justin.”
She lay back, and turned away from him uneasily. “I’m sorry that I take your bed, again. I thank you for this; you are very kind to me. I owe you my life, as little meaning as it has. I owe you everything.”
“You owe me nothing. Yourself is enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have never once seen, let alone been close as this, to anything so beautiful as you.”
Klaude could feel herself blushing, she could feel the warmth in her cheeks, she could feel her color rising; so she brought his cool hand to her face, and let it stay there.
*
“We will be staying here, for the night,” the lady LaRue said, and she halted their ponies in front of a little inn and brought them into the stable. She dragged their cart to the back and tied it down with a rope from her apron.
“Where are we?” Reina demanded, slowly following the old lady up the front steps of the inn.
“Why, look around you. Do you see these rich lanterns that line the roads? Uphill, and not very far at all, do you see that grand castle, that King David and only King David may call his house? Why, we are in the capital of Myuri. The capital of the true king, not some murderous queen that is trying to usurp him,” LaRue spat. “You should know this place very well. You were born here.” She gazed over her shoulder and looked at Reina, for a very long time. “And you belong here,” she mumbled, to herself.
“That was seventeen long years ago, so I know this place not. And I am sure it has changed plenty, in the seventeen years I have been away growing up in some nobody-village.”
LaRue stopped and she closed her eyes and sighed. “No, Reina it has not. It has not changed at all. By God. Not a bit.” She plaintively clutched at the fat jewel hanging from her neck.
“You have lived here then? You have lived at Myuri’s capital?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! Then why would you ever wish to leave?”
“That’s not important,” LaRue replied, sternly. “Here is a purse of some moneys. Pray get us a room.”
“And when we get a room, then what?” pressed Reina, with the eagerness and impatience of a girl.
“I will walk up to the palace, tell the guard at the gates what has happened and request an audience with the king; we will see him tomorrow and tell him what has occurred and things will be right and well, and we will receive settlement.”
Reina pictured herself spending the rest of her life with such a bitter senior-lady at some countryside settlement and frowned.
*
The innkeeper exchanged her coins for a room key and some directions to the room. “And you may get food and drink at the tavern.”
Reina looked at the tavern through the open doorway; it was very noisy and there was no staff ordering the most un-lady-like girls to put their dress back on, nor stop pairs of men and women from making most wild love on tabletops. It was mad as any whorehouse.
Reina had been forbidden by her father to go to any place so crude.
But he was dead.
*
There were two small beds, each with a pillow and linen sheets, a bath and a pisspot.
Reina stripped her dress and shift – the only clothing she had – and stepped into the cold waters of the bath. She was chilled to the bone and there was lots of dirt at the surface of the bath, but she was filthy and covered in coats of her own dried sweat, and so she rinsed herself in the water and rubbed her skin and hair down with oils.
She then dried and wrapped herself with towels and soaked her dirty dress of faded lavender color in what was left of the bath.
LaRue was soon there; she threw herself onto one of the beds, slipping her feet from her leathery boots, and laughed. “The guard was terribly frightened. I am sure the king will be, too, when he hears that a village only a few days journey from his beloved capital has been captured. He is very fortunate that we lived. He will see us tomorrow, they say. At dawn. He will send an escort.” The woman stood and entered the bath chamber.
“Reina, do go and fetch some water for the bath and the piss. And some food and good ale while you are down there. Take a dress of mine.”
Reina took the bag of LaRue’s wears in her hand and searched it. “Everything in here is so fine. And there is fine jewelry, too. Almost as fine as what you wear at your neck.”
Impatiently, the old woman snatched the smallest dress from the bag: simple gray damask, with a very low bodice and fairly short skirt. “Put on this and then go do as I have said.”
Reina managed to struggle her way across the busy tavern to the counter.
“I would like some bread and potatoes and whatever fruit you may have, and some good ale. And a jug of water for the bath and piss,” she said to the boy at the front.
“A wench will go to your rooms with the water,” the boy replied. And then he set off to the back to do her bidding.
Reina sat and waited.
“You wanted good ale?”
She turned to the boy to her right. He was very dark and very handsome, almost in a dangerous sense; he held out his opened bottle of ale to her.
“Yes, good ale, not yours. For my mistress. Seniors do enjoy it at night,” Reina replied.
“You are nurse to an older lady, then?”
“Not really,” she answered after a pause. And then she could not help but brag, “We will be going to see the king tomorrow.”
“Does he wish to wife you? I could not blame him, if he did. You are terribly pretty. You quite tempt me.”
Reina could find no words to respond; she just blushed prettily. It was seldom that she was able to enjoy the flirtations of a man so attractive.
“Eric,” a girl prompted him. And he followed her upstairs – but not after giving Reina a final look; a final look of rue and desire.
And then a wench arrived with the food and ale and two jugs of water and came up with Reina to her rooms.
*
“Here is some broth the wives bid me take to you,” Ashleigh said, entering the sitting area of Justin’s tent.
Justin looked up from the blade he had been sharpening for his master; he had cut himself a little bit. “Thank you.”
“May I see it?”
“See what?”
“The sick creature the wives were talking about, of course.”
“There is none,” he replied impatiently.
“Then you wanted the broth for yourself?” she inquired, her suspicions aroused.
The bowl was burning his hands. “No. Thank you for bringing it, Miss Ashleigh. I really do appreciate that.”
“Is this for a girl? A girl in your bed? My father would not approve. I do not approve. Surely not, Justin? When we are betrothed? Surely not!”
“She was hurt, and once she is well and able to talk, we will escort her to wherever her place is.”
“Fine then,” Ashleigh spat, grim as a bitter wife. “Don’t forget that you are mine.”
“I am not. I would leave your father in a trice, if only to be free of you.”
Justin brought the broth Klaude, still lying in his bed.
“I’d hoped that you would come back. I want to go outside. To walk. Will you walk with me?”
“Of course. You look better though you have always looked very good, to me.”
She laughed a bit. “Is that for me?”
“Yes.” He spooned some of the hot broth into her prim little mouth. “And, though I wish that I could have you forever, since you are well you should be brought to wherever your place is. I can imagine you are missed. I know that I would miss you, too.”
“I… I have no place. I’m sorry. I know I should have started with that.”
“What have you to apologize for? That the universe has been cruel to you?”
“No, it is just that…”
“The wives need help with cooking, and children need tending. I’m sure your help will be appreciated,” he said, simply.
“I may stay?”
“Of course. You would be quite helpful.”
She paused. “But…? But what?”
“There is no ‘but.’ Why would there be one, when I love to have you with me, so much? Allow me to be the first man to treat you right, Klaude.”
“It would always be like this, then? You and I, together like this? Forever?”
Justin was quiet; he hated that word. He hated to think that he would be a nothing like this – a servant – forever. He hated to think that it would always be like this; he hated to think that he would never be able to do something truly great for his beloved Myuri when it would need something truly great done to save its skin from a rising, usurping conqueress.
“I should hope not,” he finally replied.
“Why ever? Is your master unkind?”
“He is good to me. But he could never give me what I truly want.”
“Pray tell me what that is.” Klaude put her hand about his knee and spread her fingers about it gently.
“You,” he said, without hesitation. He knew this just by the way she felt in his hand at that very moment, the way he wished only to care for her as he had never any other woman.
“Of course he cannot do that. Only I can. And know that I would happily.”
His lips pressed very lightly, very gently, against her own for just a heartbeat; he did not feel her mouth as he had desired to, but he did not want to push so far.
“I have always valued chivalry in a man,” Klaude whispered into his neck; her breath was summer strawberries. “But at this very moment, I do not. Hear me: I can fend for myself. I dare you to test this.”
*
“I am told there is a whore in town who invites you to her bed,” the tavern manager greeted Eric, who had come down from his room for his morning ale.
“She and every woman in Myuri, then.”
“Ahh, but it is a formal invitation, Eric. She sends a good page.”
“I’m not in the mood,” Eric replied, irritably.
“That’s a first,” laughed the bartender, merrily. Eric frowned.
“And you know I am not one for desperate women.”
“Is something the matter, Sir? You are usually in higher spirits.”
Eric had slept poorly the night before. He had sent away his slut after she had serviced him, and lay thinking about the dark-haired maid he had briefly conversed with, at the bar. She was polite and did not fling herself onto him; she was sweet and cheerful in conversation. But, at any rate, she was gone.
“Tell this to no one.”
“I am all ears but no mouth then, Sir.”
“I met a girl yesterday, here. She was very lady-like –”
“Not a whore, then?”
“No. And I had a stirring for her. Not one of lust, though I did desire her well. But, rather than to bed her, I would have liked to speak with her, to know her—which, you must know, is incredibly unusual for me. She said she would be seeing the king, this morning.”
“Ahh, really? There was a royal escort here, about an hour or so ago. It took a dark-haired girl and an older maid.”
“She said she had a senior mistress,” Eric recalled, to himself, “that must have been her.”
“But she was very pretty, and you know King David’s lust; it almost compares to your own, Eric. He will probably take her as his mistress, take her fine, irresistible body.”
“For shame, that you should speak of His Majesty like that,” Eric laughed.
The bartender shrugged. “And, so then, if you are not doing anything today, why not see the whore?”
“Fine, then, since you are so adamant.”
“Good, good! I will get the page and he will take you to her. She won’t be here long.”
Eric followed the page to a little house up the road.
“She is inside, Sir. She will leave here after you are done.”
“Wait – do tell me about her. It is strange for a man to ride a mare he has never once seen before.”
“Please, do so go in. You will see.” And the page turned on his heel and was gone.
Eric opened the door a crack; he could see a girl, her back to him. He could see worn copper hair; he entered reluctantly. She was no great beauty; he could already tell this.
“Hello,” he said, awkwardly. “I am told you won’t be here long, and I do not want to be here long, so come. Shall we?”
And then she turned around. Eric’s heart almost gave with shock.
The woman held a baby to her bosom. “Hello, Eric.”
“Dele – gracious! Dele!” Eric cried. “You always said you would come back to me, and you did not. I have waited, you know? And it has been more than a year. You look so terribly different! And, oh, what is this?” He reached out and touched the child. She forced it into his arm.
“You have not waited very patiently,” Dele scoffed. “I am told you lie with more women than the master of a whorehouse.”
Eric flushed. He ignored her words; he ignored them because they were true and for the first time yet he felt a small flash of shame. “What is this?” he asked, referring to the little female infant.
“She is yours.”
“What…?”
“I said she is our daughter. Your daughter. I have titled her Rynn.”
“My god, Madame! You come back to me now, after more than a year’s time has elapsed, not to find pleasure in seeing me, but to dump something, upon me?”
“How could anyone find pleasure in seeing a whore such as yourself?” she spat back. “And this is your own fault. When I lay with you, I genuinely felt love for you, and thought you returned it. But as it turns out, you are just a lustful fool, and that I gave you my virginity meant nothing at all to you, though it meant the world, to me. My mother and father have disowned me. I came here because I thought you had honor and class and the grace to take me and our child in. But clearly there is no room for family in your life, just a whore in your bed! And I am dumping something upon you, if you must call beautiful human life a something. You must take ‘it’. It is not within your choice; you must. Or let your own kin die with me.”
Eric paled; his expression darkened. “You are right. There is no room for family in my life. There has been no room since my good mother and father were both murdered.”
Dele was quiet, for a little bit. She had taken no notice to the tears wet and hot on her face. “Then take this baby as your own. Be its father. Be the father that you lost.”
And then for the first time, Eric wept before a woman. He took the baby and he wept.
*
That morning, Reina and the Madam LaRue left the inn with a royal escort taking them to King David.
The sun was just starting to rise, and as they walked outside Reina took pleasure in its sweet kiss.
“What happens to us after this, LaRue?” she asked, as they filed into the horse-drawn carriage. It was small and cozy and yet Reina felt like a prisoner.
“The king will give us appropriate settlement, since we have lost our homes. All will be well.”
Reina was quiet. “What good is a settlement when our dear Myuri is about to be swallowed whole by a demonic usurper?”
“His Majesty will have his army protect us. He and his advisers will come up with something. And then I assure you Reina, this little rebellion or civil war – whatever you choose to call it – will be over and forgotten,” said LaRue, with more confidence than she felt.
“You know that is not true. It is only a matter of time. She is a conqueress that compares to the Queen Myuri I.”
“What you say is treason!” whispered LaRue, sharply. “And in the end, Kylani is just a woman, a queen. And a queen is no match for a king. After all, she is but a girl. She is just eighteen. She is a little girl; His Majesty is a man. A child is no match for a man, for a good king.”
Reina laughed scornfully. “That is probably what her dead father thought.”
Written on Jan 4, 2012. Filed under story, myuri, writing. Leave a comment?
Klaude had come, simply for a drink.
She felt as worthless as the others in the tavern, alone and drinking recklessly on the night of the summer solstice. They had no families to spend such an occasion with; they were as alone, as miserable as she was, their only companion being their drink.
Klaude had run away from her mistress, with only the few possessions she held dear, and a purse of barely enough coins for but a single glass of wine.
She did not run away from her mistress, specifically, but from her mistress’ new husband, who would come to her bed in the night, when his wife was asleep, and plead for Klaude to lie with him – oh, just one time!
Every night, she denied him; every night, she felt more violated.
And then came the night when he did not give her a choice. He came to her bed, and covered her mouth with a hand hot with dangerous desire.
By dawn the next day, Klaude was miles away; she had run east, east in the city-state of Congrella, east, just miles from Myuri’s capital, where, at that very moment, the great King David could enjoy as much wine as he so desired, on the treasury of the crown.
“Miss, can I get you something to drink?”
Klaude looked up from her hands, folded in her lap, to the pot girl standing before her.
“Wine, just a glass of it, please,” she replied softly, fumbling for the coins of her purse. She knew just by the way the young pot girl looked at her, that she was intrigued by Klaude’s most unique features – her crimson hair, thin, with most uncared for split ends touching her elbows, her eyes that reflected the sky, her caramel skin, her delicate pink lips, even her breasts, fashionably small, somewhere buried beneath the bodice of her dress.
The girl shook her head. “Sorry, Miss—that is not enough.”
Klaude was humiliated, her hand suspended in the air holding out the money. It was not enough; all of her earnings and the only money she had taken with her, when she had run away – not enough for a glass of wine, definitely not enough for a night at the inn just across the road from the tavern.
“Is this enough?”
She turned to her side: A most dashing young aristocrat. He offered the pot girl a handful of silver coins.
“Enough, and more.”
“Then more, you will serve us.”
He seated himself beside Klaude, as the serving wench walked away.
“Isn’t there something that, perhaps, you would like to say to me?”
Klaude cleared her throat, gathered her wit. “I only desired one glass of wine. I wish to return home, and I do not wish to return home intoxicated.”
He smiled slyly; he was handsome to say the least. But Klaude had no interest in having relations with any man, not since she had been defiled by her mistress’ husband, the beast she had run away from.
“Where is this home, you speak of, Madam?” he inquired, a flirtatious ring to his voice.
Klaude looked away from him; she did not respond.
The wench returned with a most lavish bottle of wine, and two glasses filled with the rich red substance.
“You do not have to converse with me, but please, all I ask is that you drink.”
Klaude brought the glass to her lips; she drank the wine with goodwill, sipped at it contentedly until it had vanished from her cup. Then she stood to leave.
“Wait – please.” He touched his fingertips to her wrist, spread them out against the skin, tenderly. “Have another; when I came to you, you appeared distressed. It is the night of the summer solstice, a night for celebration. A single glass of wine is not nearly celebratory enough, nor is it enough to rid you of your sadness. Have another, please?”
Klaude sighed, and sat back down beside him, watching him skillfully fill her glass with more of the delightful red fluid. His arm found her shoulders and wrapped itself around them; he held her to him, as though she were his own.
“What is your name?” Klaude demanded, impatiently.
“Gaius. Now you must tell me yours.”
“I am Klaude. I thank you for your generosity, but I cannot go home with you.”
Gaius brought his arm down to her waist, his touch rich with desire. “Then where will you go?”
Klaude looked away; she could not answer his question. She knew not where else she could possibly go, but with him.
Her third glass, then her fourth glass, and she had decided she would indeed go home with him.
It was far past midnight, and the tavern was empty.
“Come home with me, Klaude.” Gaius stood, and offered her a hand.
“Of course…” her voice was almost as wobbly as she was, climbing to her feet. She held him for guidance, followed him down the dark, barren roads of the town.
“Where…” Klaude managed to utter. Even in her drunken state, she knew something was amiss. She could feel danger; she tried to push away from him, at that very moment, her heart beating wildly, but he was stronger, much stronger.
He grabbed her, animal-like, insane, pushed her against a tree.
She felt his hands in places they did not belong; they stripped her dress from her body, felt and groped and touched, so violently, no love, no tenderness. She opened her mouth to scream, but then the cold blade of a knife found her throat, and cut a long, narrow slit.
“If you scream,” he said, “I will cut.” Gaius smiled at the horror in her face, and his tongue lapped at the blood dripping down the nape of her neck.
His mouth kissed her own, but it was a dreadful kiss, one of dark, dangerously fierce lust, not of love. He held her against the tree with the crushing weight of his body; he entered her with frightening force.
She pushed and writhed from beneath him, desperate for freedom, trying to cry out, but his mouth swallowed her own, aggressively, solely to silence her. Klaude managed to free her mouth of his, but he slapped his hand against her little cheek, beat a fist into her lips so all that could escape from them were a meek scream and a pathetic whimper. She moaned silently in defeat, and he dropped her and left after cutting a thin slit in the crevice of her breasts.
Klaude collapsed, face forward into mounds of dirt, salty tears gliding down beaten cheeks.
The last thing she heard were the footsteps of this man, as he fled to wherever might truly be his home, a place he had not taken her, as he had said that he would.
*
Reina sang a happy little working tune to herself, as she prodded a washing stick about a barrel containing only soapy water and her father’s and her wears.
It was a typical morning; her village was slowly starting to wake, the women coming outside – with only wraps to cover their nightshirts – to do their household’s washing, men readying for work, and children preparing for school.
She took in the herbal scent of some sort of tea being prepared by her father from inside their cozy little house, comfortably nestled in the south of Congrella.
“Reina.”
Reina turned to see her father’s smiling face, poking out of the backdoor of their house as she hung their garments along a clothesline.
“Yes, Father?”
“Have something to eat, daughter. Are you not tired? It is still early…” Revony said, with fatherly tenderness.
“Of course, Father, and I am quite fine,” Reina replied.
It was cool outside, despite the fact that it was already late-June, and the summer solstice had just been the day before. Reina stepped into the warmth of the house, her walk graceful as ever; she seated herself at their modest little dining table, Revony sitting down across her.
She looks so very much like her late-mother; that lustrous black hair, those dreamy violet eyes and perfectly pink lips, oh, those dark, rich lashes, that prim, firm nose. Revony sighed to himself. My Reina. She was beautiful to say the least; she was already seventeen, his Reina, his lovely, perfect, Reina – and he was convinced that her life had far more purpose, than to do chores for him.
And yet he was quite sure that there was not a single man in all of the realm quite worthy of his perfect little girl—save for the king of Myuri, perhaps.
“Myuri’s current situation is not looking good, my dear,” he stated, with a small sigh.
“Has it ever, really? Oh – does this regard that murderous Kylani?” Reina inquired. “Father, you know I have never been one for… politics.”
“I am aware that you lack an interest in ‘politics,’ but I have always hoped you would develop one. Either way, it is a mystery as to whether or not she is responsible for her father’s death – but, as a woman only slightly your senior, she definitely has some nerve to declare the city-state she now rules, independent. She is starting a war, and she knows it. And she is unafraid. Quite, quite unafraid.”
Reina brought her cup of tea to her lips, with an awkward stiffness. “Honestly, Father…You do so love to talk.”
Revony sighed, once more. “Politics, government – oh, they simply thrill me, my Reina. I would never be so happy, as to see you obtain some sort of seat in them.” There was some regret in his voice.
The meal proceeded in silence, until Reina stood, and went back outside to continue with the washing. All of her early morning gaiety had left her, and so she did not sing to herself, now, as she worked.
And then the screeching of a trumpet march suddenly caught her attention.
She was confused at the sound, positively alarmed. She stepped out from behind the house, and cocked her head for a view of where the odd noise was emanating from – the foothills that licked the borders of the village. The foothills were swamped, swallowed in the most terrifying of colors – red – red, the color of Espiarus, once peaceful, loving Espiarus ruled by peaceful, loving King Napoleon.
But those days were over.
Now, red was the color of Espiarus’ murderous new queen, Kylani.
An army greater than the little town in both size and population was approaching. Reina gulped, for she knew it would show no mercy: it would slaughter not just men but women and chilren.
“Father!” Reina was feverish in all her fright, her shock. She couldn’t speak, she was shaking, weeping.
Revony was already outside, his still body leaning against the front of the house. He was paralyzed with fear; he saw Reina, scrambling to his side, and put on a façade of dignity, of courage that did not exist.
“Daughter, come.” Revony put an arm around the child he so loved, the child he was willing to do anything for, die for. He found that the old lady, Madame LaRue, was comfortable in a wagon she had had readied the night before.
Her luggage was packed; two strong ponies saddled. She turned and smiled most elegantly at Revony. “You were a fool to not believe me a psychic, Revony. I long foresaw this morning. In spite of your lack of faith in my abilities, I will save your daughter, as I promised to you I would.”
Revony looked up, emotionlessly, into the elderly woman’s smug face. “Please, not another word. Just take my daughter.”
He spoke of Reina as though she were not there, as though he hadn’t his arms around her. But he was ready to let go of her, for he had no other choice.
“Father, I will die at your side.” Reina gazed up at him, determination blazing in her youthful face.
“No, Reina. You will obey me as your father, and be not such a fool; you will go and find refuge with this kind-hearted lady.”
Reina opened her mouth to protest – her stubbornness was really quite annoying, especially in situations such as this – but Revony passionately kissed her scalp, her lips, with a fatherly love, squeezed her in a tight hug, and then he pushed her away from him, with such power, such force, that any onlookers whom had missed his tight embrace would think that he was in a rush to rid of her.
“My Reina, I love you. I made an oath with your mother as she died, that I would see to your safety before mine to the bitter end. This is the bitter end, Reina, precious, precious, Reina.”
Reina bit on her bottom lip in an effort to avoid breaking down in tears. Her father did not deny that this was the end, that their next meeting should be in another world, and only God knew when that would be.
“Oh, Father…”
LaRue tugged Reina up beside her, by the arm.
And they were gone; behind them was all a red, red blur.
*
The old woman had not always been so cold. But life had been unkind to Madame LaRue, and with every disappointment and letdown and rejection, she had become bitterer, each she had tucked under her belt and never forgotten, and by now all the regrets she had nursed throughout the span of her life had curdled putridly into spite.
In her youth, LaRue had been a dancer, and a talented one, at that. Lonesome nights in bed were infrequent, but nights spent in bed at all, even more so.
When asked how many men coveted her, LaRue would always guess a figure somewhere around fifty. When asked how many heads she turned while walking down the road, she would give a rough estimate of about ten. When asked how many hearts she had broken, she would say nothing; there were simply too many to count.
But for whatever reason, the one man she had loved with her entire being had deserted her. When they used to make love, years and years ago, in the moments of stillness that sometimes transpired, he would always tell her, breathlessly, that he loved her; and she would always tell him the same with equal breathlessness. But where he was now, she did not know, for he had never told her. All that was left of him was the moonstone necklace that she still for some reason wore, the necklace of which he had given her the very night before he disappeared from her life.
This girl, Reina – was that her name? – reminded LaRue greatly of her own self, as a young lady, and for that very reason, she would not have rescued her from the invasion, had the girl’s father not been a friend, a dear friend.
“Who are you?”
LaRue turned to acknowledge the maid, Reina, who had been so daring as to break the silence that had held strong between them over the course of their two days of travel. “You will call me Madame LaRue.”
Reina dipped her head, in a slow, poised manner. She gazed all around her, suddenly in a state of shock, that, for the first time in her life, she hadn’t a clue where she was, where the two ponies leading their little wagon were taking her.
“We are traveling north, lass,” LaRue stated, firmly, as if in response to the girl’s confused expression, “to the capital.”
“Why is that?” Reina asked, in a state of shock. She had always been quite sure that she would die before seeing the capital, Corriander, with her own two eyes.
The old woman shrugged. “Well, the king should be made aware of the invasion, should he not? That an army perhaps sent by the queen, Kylani, herself, his greatest enemy, his greatest fear, is within miles of him, yes?”
“Yes…”
LaRue sighed, ruefully. “I am very sorry for the loss of your father, Mistress Reina; he was a good man, a very good man. I hope that you should find it in your heart to move on.”
“Loss? Loss! You do not know that my father has been lost. No… there is no way that he could be lost!” Reina cried out, miserably, the true gravity of her situation falling heavily upon her. Was she now an orphan – no – she could not be!
“I do not know, indeed, but I do know that there is a high chance of him being… lost,” LaRue replied, gently. “Miss Reina, you will lose plenty more persons in your life. I assure you that there will be more painful losses than this.” Her fingers found the moonstone of her necklace, cold against her skin.
*
Justinian watched the girl in silence, from his seat at the town’s tavern. The lights were quite dim; all he could hear were festive sounds in celebration of the summer solstice, outside.
He gazed at her intently, at her tumbling locks of red, red hair, her pretty face, her feminine-build. His heart was set aflutter with desire for her, and he could no longer resist the urge to step forward to her, and make conversation.
But Justin was beat to it by another man, with a handful of coins, sliding about the bench of the table to the girl’s side, his waist clicking against hers.
A silent curse escaped Justin’s lips, his tongue having been somewhat loosened by several glasses of wine.
*
“You wanted me, Sir?”
Justin was unsure what to expect, upon being summoned to the tents of his master, a wealthy merchant, while most were still out and about the lit up streets, dancing and drinking.
He observed that his master’s daughter, Ashleigh, stood at her father’s side, a prim, most seductive look about her vainly cared for face, directed towards him. Justin flushed, and turned away; her flirtations had come to be quite annoying.
“It has come to my attention that you have given me several good years of service, and in exchange I would like to offer to you my own daughter’s hand.”
Justin cleared his throat, trying desperately not to betray his shock and dismay. How was he to tell his master that he was not interested in his daughter, his daughter who was known to be common-stale, earning good wage as a harlot behind his back?
“My father has numerous servants, Justin,” Ashleigh said, a smirk across her lips, “and intends to perhaps dismiss a couple, in the next few days. Maybe – just maybe – it would be in your best interest to accept my hand.”
Justin gazed meekly over his shoulder, wishing to join the others outside who were still partying like madmen in the streets. “You are right, Madame. I should need a couple of days to consider.”
And then he took his leave, most boldly from the tent of his master and his master’s gaping daughter.
*
The street lights were beginning to dim, and the roads littered with emptied wine bottles were beginning to clear; the moon was Justin’s only guidance as he began back towards the merchant’s encampments. He wondered to himself how much longer he would serve his master, if he should decline Ashleigh’s hand and allow his large family, back home to starve; should he wed into what would definitely be a miserable, sure-to-fail marriage or should he not, and lose his job?
All was silent, perfectly still, and around him fellow workers were already fast asleep in their own tents. They were middle-aged men, fathers with families, who had no desire to drink and dance in overloaded streets.
He sighed to himself, and was suddenly frightened still at the sound of moaning.
The slightest whimpers… of agony?
Justin suspected at first that the little sounds belonged to a puppy left for dead, until he lit a match and pointed it in the direction of the small groans.
“Oh, Goodness!”
Lying face down at the foot of a tree was what appeared to be a small girl, only her radiant red hair showing in the dark of night.
“Hello – are you alive? Hello?” Justin whispered, mostly to himself as he scrambled over to the girl sprawled out and stripped of her dress in the dirt. The closer he got to the girl, the more familiar she appeared to be.
And then he recognized her – the pretty maid at the tavern.
Justin propped her up against the tree, stroking tangled locks of her most alluring crimson hair from a face stained with dry blood and dirt, and lifting her prim little chin with a single finger. Her nude, dainty body was covered in dirt and bruises, but, regardless, for a brief moment made him feverish with desire. He swallowed and closed his eyes and whispered to himself that he should be a gentleman.
Although he was no physician, Justin ruled to himself that the girl had been raped and terribly beaten. The cut in her chest made him wonder if she would live.
He stripped the cape hanging limply from his shoulders and wrapped it around her delicate little body; he pulled her into his arms. The beating of her heart was wild against him; she was clearly still very much alive.
Her eyes began to flicker open slowly, hesitantly, as though she wasn’t quite ready to see the world again, just yet.
“Can you speak to me, Madam? If you can, pray tell me your name?” He combed his fingers through her mess of scarlet hair gently, holding her to himself as though he had known her lifetimes ago.
“Klaude,” she whispered, faintly, and then she buried her face into Justin’s chest miserably and began to weep.
“I see you are in pain so you need not say more, until dawn, at least,” he told her, reassuringly. “I will get help for you soon enough.” Justin thought of the wives and daughters of the merchant’s other servants, who could perhaps spare Klaude some dress, help her wash, and see to the wounds about the personal areas of her skin. But, alas, they were all asleep and it would be quite, quite rude to wake them.
“Can I trust you?” she whispered, removing her face from his chest to gaze up at him challengingly.
“Milady, I fear that you have no one else to trust, for the given.” A smile shone about his handsome, dark face.
Klaude trusted his smile, and gingerly matched it with her own. She then let him carry her to his tent, where he lay her down beneath a thick comforter on a little mattress. He propped her head up on a pillow.
Justin installed himself at her side; he gazed around protectively as though guarding treasure.
His dear smile was the last thing Klaude saw, before drifting off into more pleasant dreams.
*
The sky was a rich black.
It was late in the night of the highly celebrated summer solstice, at the heart of Congrella, Myuri.
A dashingly dark young war veteran had just returned to his fashionable manor from the town’s tavern. He visited this tavern so frequently that it was often dubbed his own; he had once considered buying it—what with his tremendous wealth—but he had come to realize that there was no need, for, despite the fact that he could never call the place his property, he could call all of its women such.
There was still much partying about the town, as the solstice came only once every twelve moons, but Eric was quite contented with his catch: A most attractive maid, perhaps not the most beautiful lady in all of Myuri, but surely one that could fair well enough in his bed, at least for the night.
He wasn’t quite sure of her name, but prior experience in this game he so excelled at, had taught him that it was better he did not. However, his name was no secret; every girl in the community was aware of it, and desperately wished for hers to be linked with it.
Eric brought the girl to his chambers, introducing her to a handsome four-poster bed.
“It looks like any other bed, Sir,” she whispered to him, slyly, one hand stroking his bare chest, the other clinging to his waist.
“And yet it is not.”
“Oh? Then pray tell me – what makes it special?”
“That, you will soon discover for yourself.”
And yet, as he lifted her onto the bed and the tinkling of her seductive laugh alone instantly thrilled his body, his thoughts wandered to the summer solstice of the previous year – the girl he had spent it with, the virgin daughter of the governor of the regions north, the betrothed to a wealthy and popular doctor, the first woman to ever tell him the words I love you.
When the whore in his bed fell asleep, he rose and silently crept to an oak chest at the corner of his bedchamber; he pulled one drawer open. It was empty, save for a mask of silver and gold, pressed with pearl seeds, which were the symbol of the northern regions. He thought of the girl who had worn it, her fiery hair catching his attention and setting his heart aflutter one year ago on that night.
“Oh, Dele,” he whispered, his fingers playing with the deftly-crafted gold folds of the mask. “What has become of you?”
*
A nurse greeted Dele with good news, that morning.
Whereas most others spent the summer solstice drinking and partying, the poor girl had spent the day in labor, in those very hospital rooms.
She had been sleeping, until the nurse quietly entered with the new, healthy babe at her hip.
“Wake, Madam.” The nurse helped to prop Dele up, and rested the baby girl in her lap. “I am quite, quite pleased to report to you that she appears to be in good health.”
Dele smiled, weakly. “I am pleased to hear so.”
“And your mother and father finally returned to town yesterday at dawn. They were quite, quite shocked to hear that you were in labor, as they had never even heard that you – their daughter – were with child. Your father was particularly displeased. Your mother arrived, just a bit earlier – will you see her?”
“Thank you. Yes.”
The nurse then exited, and Dele watched her mother enter. She came to sit at Dele’s bedside and took the child in her arms, tenderly examining the newborn.
“She looks very good, Dele.”
“As I am told.”
“I wish I had heard of her, sooner,” the woman said to her daughter, coolly.
“Had you and Father not spent almost the whole year away, it would not have been such a surprise.”
“You could have written.”
“I assumed rumor of my pregnancy would have reached you very soon.”
“It did not and do not assume anything,” her mother replied, stiffly. She looked over her daughter, and at first glance thought at least twenty years had passed, not one; Dele, at eighteen, had the appearance of a middle-aged housewife. Her fiery copper hair was gray and drained of life; her face was grim and leathery. Her youthful beauty had vanished from her.
“What is to happen to me, Mother?”
“Your betrothed – that very learned, respected doctor, Hal – no longer wants for you to be his wife, of course. He claims that you two had never once lain, so that child is not his,” she answered, smoothly. “And your father has decided to disown you. My Dele, I am without say.”
Disown.
Dele hid her shock and tremendous fear under a façade of stern bravery and acceptence. “Of my daughter?”
“Again, your father will not have it.”
A cool silence then transpired between mother and daughter.
“My Dele, you must rest here for some time. And then perhaps you might seek out the man who impregnated you and ask that he extend his home to yourself and your daughter.”
Dele thought of Eric, and of how she had left him with cool dignity that morning one year ago. It would be humiliating to run to him, a man she had spent but a single night with, to plead for help, for shelter. But my daughter needs a home.
“Mother, I must ask you something.”
“Of course, Dele.”
“Do I have your forgiveness?”
Her mother paused. And then nodded. “Yes.”
“Then pray follow my exact instructions.”
“You have my ear, daughter.”
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