In response, a few rocks were winged at the Black guards, hitting their horses. The animals reared back in terror as more pelted them like rain. The excited merchants began to throw anything they could get their hands on; sticks, cutlery, heavy masks…
“Go away!” they shouted at the Blacks. “Go back to Axyum!”
The Blacks were taken aback by this. They regrouped and decided to respond with a full charge against the merchants, who fled once more. I grinned as I turned to face off with the remaining guards. But my smile was wiped off my face when I saw that neither Cestia nor her two guards were left standing. The Blacks raised their swords in exultation. “What have you done?” I screamed.
“What we shall do with you Harlequin!” cried their leader.
There were six of them and two of us. I picked up one of the spears and hurled it right at him. It skewered him in a vital spot between his ribs and its heavy iron tip shot out of his back.
Now there were five Black left standing. Daerec dispatched another one by cutting through his shoulder down to an artery. Four left. Two jumped at me, but I quickly rolled on the ground and used my legs to push them over. The pain from my injured thigh was intense. I gritted my teeth as I began to bleed again. Seeing the blood on my leg, one of them crowed: “So Harlequins bleed, too.”
Just then, he fell over. Daerec’s knife was in his neck. The other one swung his sword at my wounded leg. I was faster. I held him back by thrusting the point of my weapon right through his mask and into his skull.
There were now two left, but they took off. I did not care. I staggered through the pile of lifeless and mutilated bodies lying on the ground until I was over the only one that mattered to me. Cestia’s mask was no longer white, but red with blood. I gently removed it with my trembling hands. Even though her eyes were closed, she looked more beautiful than I had dared to imagine. Her long black eyelashes and crimson lips stood out on her snow white skin.
“She’s dead, Asheva,” said Daerec still panting from the fight. “There’s nothing you can do.”
I kneeled close to her and gently stroked her hair. I could see she had two wounds; one near the abdomen and one on her shoulder, close to her birthmark symbol of being a Noble Ashi. Daerec raised me up with unexpected force. “I won’t leave you here to die! Get a grip on your emotions and get on that horse!”
“She doesn’t deserve to die here,” I murmured.
“It doesn’t matter any longer!” cried Daerec. “We must leave here before other Blacks come!”
“I want to take her with us,” I told him. “I want to bury her in Samaris.”
“Samaris? You’re mad! She stabbed us, remember?”
“No!” I snapped. He grabbed my arm, again, but I pushed him away. “I will take her and bury her next to her father, Daerec – with or without you.”
“Then, you’ll have to do it without me,” he finally said. “I’ll go back to Everdia. You know where to find me if you don’t get yourself killed.”
I nodded. “I’ll come back. I promise.”
“I’m not sure I care anymore,” he replied. He grabbed the reins of a Red’s horse. Then he stared at me one last time before riding away to the south.
“So long, friend,” I said under my breath. I lifted up Cestia and placed her body on my stolen Black’s horse. Rain started to fall as I galloped away in the direction of the Red Kingdom. It washed away the colors on my face and the tears in my eyes, but it couldn’t wash away my grief.
22. Friend or Foe?
The rain poured down in cold, heavy sheets. The ground dissolved into mud. My horse was a fine strong beast, but it struggled until it instinctively slowed down out of fear of hurting itself. Its coat was wet and the saddle squeaked on its back. The sound grated on my nerves, which had been stretched as taut as the strings on an Everdian lute by my skirmish with the Black soldiers. I scanned gray skies, frowning. Every now and then, I glanced behind me to see if anyone followed us.
The horse trudged across soggy wheat fields that paralleled the Cancerian, keeping the forest – the highly dangerous Black Forest, I might add – to my left. I figured out that Axyum must be no longer than two or three days’ journey away. Part of me yearned to throw caution to the winds and sneak into the city of my birth so I could try to find my Mother, but I had my mission for Cestia to consider. As for Samaris, my knowledge of the terrain told me it was equal-distant, to the East. At some point or other, I knew I would have to risk crossing the Cancerian, too, if I was ever to make my way back to the Red Kingdom, or what remained of it.
Suddenly, the sky seemed to split in two. Whip cracks of thunder echoed throughout the plain. This must have been the sign from the gods I had unconsciously been waiting for – a sign that would let me know I’d made the right choice. I looked at Cestia to see if her body was all right, even though her soul had left her. The pouring rain had washed away the blood from her pale white skin, leaving it immaculate.
Then it happened… I heard a soft, faint groan. I almost lost control of the reins when Cestia’s body shivered in the rain. “Cestia!” I rejoiced. “You’re alive!” I was reinvigorated by every breath of life that issued from her lungs.
“I’m…cold,” she managed to say. “I feel…cold.”
What I had mistaken for fatal wounds on her back was the blood of our attackers. I gently examined her body and saw that the only blood which did not disappear had pooled on her stomach, from a very real wound.
I immediately turned the horse around and urged her into the Black Forest. The risk was now worth taking because it was the nearest place to find shelter from the storm. I also wanted to try my best to heal Cestia, and that would require getting her rest. “Stay awake!” I pleaded with the princess. “Stay with me Cestia! Stay with me!”
As soon as we entered the tree line, I dismounted and quickly led the horse through the woods.
There, I eased Cestia onto a natural bed of soft moss. She murmured things that were incomprehensible to me. She was shaking hard and her hands felt ice cold. I removed my mantle, tore off a strip and wrapped it around the wound on her waist. Then I covered her up with my mantle and lay down next to her. I held her close, hoping my body would give her much-needed warmth. It seemed to work. She began to tremble less and her breathing stabilized.
We started to breathe in unison. We were here, together. Nothing else mattered to me. Not the cold rain or the wet leaves. Not the Blacks or the Reds. I slept like I hadn’t in ages; at peace with myself and with the gods.
When I next awoke, there was sunlight… And the razor-sharp edge of a blade on my throat.
Cestia was on top of me, glaring and holding my sword in her trembling hand. Her face was pallid and beautiful at the same time. Before I could say anything, she fainted. I checked her wound and I rejoiced to find that the blood wasn’t seeping. A good sign – that meant the cut wasn’t deep. Stomach wounds were often fatal and the victim often died with agonizing slowness. But Cestia’s forehead remained slick with sweat. I searched the forest floor for aries horns - reddish brown mushrooms we Blacks used for healing our sick. Their distinctive shape was similar to a ram’s head. I found several underneath a dying elm and I brought them back for Cestia to eat.
“Cestia,” I whispered gently while raising her head.
She opened her eyes and looked at me. I felt a shiver down my spine.
“My mask! Where is my mask?” she cried, alarmed.
“You lost it while we were fighting the Black soldiers,” I told her.
Then I showed her the mushrooms I had picked and cleaned for her. “Eat these and I promise you’ll feel better.”
“You want to…poison me?” she said.
“Yes,” I said smilingly, “I want to poison you, but with the venom of life.”
For the first time, she attempted to smile back at me. But it was only a moment for then she turned serious again and murmured: “No, I’d rather die than be saved by my father’s assassin.”
&n
bsp; The hard look on her face dashed away all my cheerfulness. It was as if she had given me a strong sudden blow to my stomach.
“Eat it,” I said, suddenly turning cold. “Or you will be of no use for your father’s revenge if you die.”
She finally took a small bite of the mushroom.
I surprised even myself at the harshness of my voice. Perhaps I could be forgiven for my jumbled emotions – I had almost no experience in dealing with females and the way I’d been raised permitted almost no interaction with them.
“I’m thirsty,” she then said softly and closed her eyes again. “So…thirsty.”
Her fragility shook me again. I immediately got up and plucked the largest leaves I could find from the oaks and maples that surrounded us. They were still wet from the night’s rain. I squeezed every single drop of water into Cestia’s mouth.
“More,” she rasped.
I did this all throughout the morning until at one point she raised her arm to stop me.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Why are you helping me?”
A sensation of heat crept up my face. “I told you: Because your father saved my life,” I said coldly.
“I am not my father and you owe me nothing, Harlequin,” she said with unexpected bitterness. “Leave now that you can, for I swear I will kill you.”
She started to get up, but she lost her balance and I had to help her stretch out under my mantle, again. “You are not well, yet,” I reminded her. “You can kill me when you get better.”
She remained silent with her eyes avoiding me. She was still trembling.
She finally turned around and looked at me. “You don’t look like a Harlequin,” she said.
“And what do Harlequins look like?” I replied ironically.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she said: “You were at the feast of the candles. You spoke with my father, and you were in the tower when he….”
I nodded. “When he was murdered. But I swear before the gods, I did not kill him. I cared about your father.”
“So you’ve told me… what did you two speak of that night?”
“I…we argued.”
“About what?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter any longer.”
“Well it matters to me!” she said suddenly rising up. Then too weak to stay up, she lowered herself again and spoke slowly with here eyes closed: “You were the last one to see him alive. And if what you say is true, that you didn’t kill him, at least have the decency to tell me what it was you argued about.”
“We argued about Samaris.” I finally said. “I was angry at him over the many injustices I saw in the Red Kingdom. I know the other territories are far from perfect, but I was appalled by the barbarity of forcing the Janis scrape for food every day. I couldn’t stand to see them suffering for lack of decent shelter and clothes, either. They didn’t even have a seminary to attend so they could learn how to help themselves! I was also angry with your father because he could have changed things, but he didn’t… after he revealed himself as a Harlequin and swore he wanted to put things right in every territory… he wasn’t even strong enough to change the way things were in his own! And he was the king! But by his own admission, he’d started to try, too late in his life, to change things.” The force of my outburst astonished me. On reflection, I knew it was rather unfair and naïve of me to think political changes happened with the wave of a hand. Down deep, I also regretted that he did not live longer so that I could tell him so.
Cestia remained silent, so I continued talking. “After our discussion, he told me to leave Samaris with the next sunrise which I did but then I saw the Blacks marching on the city so I came back to warn him. I found him slumped on his throne – dead – with Minister Oris standing over his corpse. The knife he’d used to stab your father was still in his hand. He tried to kill me, too, but unlike Quadrio, I wasn’t taken by surprise.”
I paused and took a breath. “I killed Oris with a vengeance, as if he had killed my own father – I killed him a moment before you entered the throne room. You saw me and assumed I’d assassinated them both.”
She carefully weighed my words.
“This is the truth!” I insisted. I was desperate to have her believe me, but that just made me sound guilty in my own ears.
She turned her face away from the sunlight that was now shining through the branches of the tree.
“Oris…” she whispered.
“He masterminded the surprise attack of the Blacks,” I added, to convince her further. “I don’t know how else to impress upon you that I’m telling the truth, but as you can see, we are alone and I have every advantage on my side. Wouldn’t killing you be easier than trying to convince you? But I’d never harm you – never! I’d rather die first, by the slowest and most torturous means possible!”
The intensity of this last statement had a surprising effect – she chuckled. Without a mask to shield her from my emotions, I must’ve looked so comically mortified she laughed harder. How was I to know, then, that she had a more sophisticated understanding of what a male Chrome could feel for a young female?
“I never liked Oris,” She confessed, ignoring my sentimental, impassioned confession to spare us both more embarrassment. “And I don’t think my father liked him either…he had been made minister by the influence of other, powerful nobles who thought my father wasn’t a harsh enough ruler. I used to tell him the same things…what good is our ability to rule if we can’t use our power to help the most humble of our subjects? And then he’d always say that ruling was not easy, that there were enemies…”
“…inside and outside the walls of Samaris,” I said.
“Yes, exactly,” she said nodding.
“And it is probably those enemies that murdered him,” I added. “Oris was just one of them.”
“Reds betraying us to the Blacks!” she marveled. “I can’t imagine it happening – even by the worst traitor. We have always been enemies…”
“It was the perfect opportunity to make everyone believe your father’s death was the deed of Harlequins.” I said. “It wouldn’t be the first time Harlequins were used as a scapegoat in the territories. Chtomio knew that well. What better way to crush his plans for a Harlequin orchestrated rebellion, too.”
“What did you just say?” she said.
I looked at her, puzzled, and then realized I’d called Quadrio by the name I’d come to know him. “I’m sorry, I meant King Quadrio — it’s just that I’d known your father as Chtomio, much longer.”
“Now I remember… Chtomio was the name you used during the feast of candles. It was also the name my father had in his youth,” she explained, “Long before he became king. In Samaris, when you become king, you are given a new name to mark the passage from noble to monarch. I’m not sure anyone would even remember his first name since so much time had passed.”
“That’s why nobody knew his name in Samaris when I asked of him,” I said, more to myself than to Cestia.
“Your friend, Daerec, what happened to him? Did he die as well?”
“No, but we parted ways,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to bring you back to Samaris and he didn’t.”
She looked down. “He called you with another name, though.”
“Asheva,” I said. “That is my real name.”
“Asheva,” she repeated. Never had I heard my name pronounced so beautifully.
She began to ask me other, more probing questions. In front of her, I felt as I had no secrets. I wanted to tell her everything; I wanted her to know all about me. We spoke throughout the day, listening to each other’s stories and absorbing every word. For me, this was a dream come true – indeed all the daydreams I’d ever had about being with her.
When I told her about Ayas and how cleverly her father had tricked the Blues to rescue me, she laughed once more. Her laughter sounded like bells to me and her merriment was contagious. When I described h
olding Tiara’s fragile lifeless body, tears rolled down her cheeks. Finally, I revealed what Chtomio had told me about chromes and Harlequins and how radically this knowledge changed my life and gave me purpose.
“So you are not a Harlequin! Harlequins don’t exist! I knew it!” she said, visibly relieved.
“Yes they do!” I told her. “They exist within each of us. Harlequins are the best part of us; the truest part. And I have chosen to be a Harlequin.”
“And do what, go around naked, without a mask?” she said sarcastically.
“Yes, exactly. Beauty and truth are hidden behind masks.” I gazed into her eyes. “Isn’t that the purpose behind your feast of the candles? To show your true face and feelings when the candles stopped burning?” She blushed.
“I still don’t know if I should kill you or hug you,” she gave me one her intriguing smiles that made me yearn to put my lips to hers. Then, without waiting for a reply, she unexpectedly got up and unhitched our horse’s reins from the tree.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’re still weak and need to lie down.”
“I’ve rested enough,” she replied. “It’s time I leave. My kingdom needs me.”
“What will you do there?” I asked.
“I will fight the Blacks!” she said.
“Then you have not learned your father’s lesson,” I said.
“They have destroyed my kingdom! They have destroyed my nation!” she cried out in tears. “But you can’t understand that can you? You have chosen to be a Harlequin!”
“I lost my nation as well,” I told her bitterly. “And I have chosen to be a Harlequin, because like your father I too do not see any future in the way we are now. Chromes fighting each other so that one color can have supremacy over the other. When will it end?”
“It will end when the Blacks are destroyed,” she said.
Rise of the Harlequin Page 5
