Schisms

by V. A. Jeffrey

Chapter Three

  The queen listened intently for the small scratchings of her messenger cat as she was practicing her calligraphy script. She was cleaning one of the brushes when she heard the gentle, telltale noises. She got up and lifted her skirts, stood on the chair near the trap door in the wall and unlocked the latticework door. Fricka shook herself, finally back from her wanderings. The little copper ball fastened to her collar gleamed with tiny lights, suggesting that information had been recorded. Fricka lept down from the ledge and rubbed up against her skirts.

  “Let us see what you have found.” Her senses were alert. Something was going on in the palace, just out of sight. It was the feeling of a sinister, veiled thing that seemed to twist, flutter and touch everyone in the palace except her. She felt she was at a loss. Fricka was extraordinarily good at gathering information and secrets, keeping her one step ahead of everyone else but this time it was as if something invisible was purposely staying just out of reach of her senses and she was deeply disturbed about it. Yet, had she not agreed to this life for a higher purpose than her own comfort and status? She sensed that whatever was buzzing around the palace, it was about her. The king had not sent for her in months, yet even that was not so unusual. Whatever it was, she had fallen in esteem in the eyes of the concubines as well, like foolish Salayma who thought herself the king's next favorite, even having the effrontery to sit in her place in the Queen's Banquet Hall and in the sitting rooms, smirking at her. All this fighting over attention from a king who barely took notice once he had what he wanted. She pitied them more than anything. If she had the interest in court politics and intrigues that they did she would truly be a holy terror but everyone rendered an accounting in the end. There were none who escaped the Eye of God. So, she held herself aloof from it all. She saw herself as one small part of a long, inexorable moving line of fire that was reaching for a purpose in the future. Everyone was. Even these others, squabbling over thrones and power, played a part in the moving line of the future, whether they wanted to or not.

  And then, there were the strange visions she'd had recently.

  She unhooked the metal ball from Fricka's collar, locked her bedroom door and went to the far wall of her inner sanctum, a room hidden behind luxuriant hangings and filled with walled chests. Chests with drawers filled with many forbidden things, such as tablets inscribed with forbidden information. She fished out a key hidden beneath her sash belt and went to a small panel on the far right side of the wall. She touched the polished wood panel, pushing gently. It clicked and dislodged itself and turned, sliding down. The true drawer was then revealed. She stuck in the key and turned it. It clicked and unlocked. Listening for anyone who might be approaching, she glanced back at the cat. Fricka would alert her if anyone approached. The cat stood behind her, gazing serenely with wide, gray-green eyes. The queen pulled out an object wrapped in cloth and set it on a nearby table. She unwrapped it. It was a small electrum and wooden box with a thin electrum rod with spiral ridges. She screwed the ball, made of the same metal as the machine, on to this rod until it tightened and fit snugly. She opened the box and set a small candle inside, lit it and waited. The flame heated the wires inside but instead of burning them the wires began to light up and then the ball itself began to glow. She quickly got one of her bronze hand mirrors and held it up to the ball. Images began to appear in the mirror. First she saw servants busy about their chores, and the image of stone and then carpeted floors - Fricka traveling down halls and through rooms and in between hangings. There were images of the cavernous kitchens, roaring cooking fires and then the fires themselves seem to engulf the images in the mirror. Fricka had gone through the huge fireplace through some secret hole or tunnel – they were numerous in the palace – and then darkness. Then a pale light appeared at the end of the tunnel and then there was an upper chamber. It was one of the king's private rooms. Two men were talking. One of them was the king, the other had his back turned but her heart froze in her. He wore the scarlet robes of a man of high rank or wealth and his long, stringy black hair was pulled back into a knot at the base of his head. His sleeves were shortened to show off the three silver arm bands of intricate filigree work on his right arm. Bakku!

  Bakku was her greatest enemy in the palace and she had noticed lately that whenever that jackal was prowling around the king, the less he would send for her. In growing alarm she watched as the king handed Bakku his signet ring. Bakku was once a priestly scribe who had recently become a scribe and a messenger of the royal court and he had influence among the Ainash priesthood and wealthy patron families of the Golden Temple. The image showed Bakku leaving the room and making his way to his own apartments. Fricka had been trained to keep an eye on Bakku's movements and she'd learned to find secret ways to follow him and go to and from his apartments, unseen. She fled from the secret peep-door at the king's chamber and soon the images showed Queen Diti that Fricka had made it to the king's study where the secretary waited. He had the secretary prepare a letter but nothing could be ascertained, only that great haste was made. Fricka had waited patiently until the many letters were finished. Then wax was melted and the seals affixed, the king's seal of the lion of Hybron with his initials below. Both men left the room and went to the balcony, waiting for the seals to dry. Fricka gingerly lept upon the table and recorded the letters more closely. The ball magnified the paper of the letters until it seemed she could almost read fragments here and there, though they were enclosed. She could not read all of them, only a few words from the letter on the top of the pile. It was addressed to the chieftain Tenan in Egium. She caught two words that made her heart stop once more.

  New queen.

  She now new her deepest suspicions were correct. Khalit wanted a new queen. She'd known this day would come, but it still wounded her. She blew out the candle, unscrewed the ball and put the machine back in its hidden place. She picked up the cat and went to a divan. She took off one of her delicate veils and draped it over her bronze mirror to obscure her reflection. She could not bear to see herself now. She sat down, stroking Fricka's soft gray fur. No matter her greater duty, tears fell silently from her face. She'd thought these feelings toward Khalit had all but disappeared, but they had not.

  “You did well, Fricka. You did well.” Fricka mewled softly.