The Throne of Amenkor

by Joshua Palmatier

  “I don’t think Borund knew either,” I said, distracted. Then I sighed and set the key back onto the clothes, turning away.

  “I don’t want to be the Mistress, Erick.”

  Erick snorted. “But you are. Nothing can change that now.”

  I felt a surge of rebellion. Erick must have seen me tense.

  “Where would you go, Varis? You can’t go back to the Dredge. You spent too much time as Borund’s bodyguard to return to living off the slums. And could you be a bodyguard now? After what’s happened here?”

  I thought about the Dredge. But Erick was right. There was nothing for me there. I’d left that long ago, had abandoned it after killing Bloodmark. But I could become a bodyguard again. Not with Borund, no. Not now. But still . . .

  I ran my hand over the page boy’s clothes and felt for the voices of the throne in the recesses of my mind, still kept at bay by the Fire. If I let the Fire relax just a little, let it dampen . . .

  I felt a flush of heat flow through me, tingling in my skin, coursing along my arms, across my shoulders, down my legs. And then the heat flowed outward, suffused and surrounded me completely, extending out through the room, through the palace, and then out farther . . . until it reached the edges of the city itself, pulsing in sync with my blood.

  I could feel the city, from the palace to the Dredge, from the River to the two towers that guarded the harbor. Its heartbeat matched mine. Its life flowed through my veins.

  I drew in a deep steadying breath, then pushed back the sensation of the city, forced the power behind the protective curtain of Fire again. My hand slid from the page boy’s clothing to my side. Erick was right about being a bodyguard as well. How could I return to that now? I was bound to the throne, and through it to the city. Bound by my own choice. Eryn may have lured me into the throne room and forced me to touch the throne, but in the end she hadn’t forced me to assume its powers, hadn’t forced me to take control. It had been my decision. I could have said no.

  “These aren’t even my clothes,” I said and turned away from the page boy’s clothing toward Erick. “I want my own clothes.”

  Erick grinned. “Let’s see what we can find. Then we need to find Avrell. He has a meeting set up with the rest of the people in control of the palace staff. They’re all anxious to meet the new Mistress of Amenkor.”

  I shot him a hard glare but his grin only widened.

  * * *

  “. . . no idea what she’s going to want, Matron Ireen. You’ll have to ask her when she arrives.”

  I heard Avrell’s voice the moment Erick opened the door to the meeting room, his tone calm and casual but tinged with irritation. He drew breath to continue, but someone else coughed discreetly and there was a loud rustle of cloth and the scraping of chairs.

  A small group of men and women rose from their seats as the door opened fully, Erick stepping into the room in front of me and then to one side. The moment I caught their collective gaze, I reached for my dagger and slid beneath the river, but managed to keep from drawing the blade. Instead, I gripped its hilt, hard enough that my knuckles turned white. Then I scanned the room.

  A simple table with seven chairs sat in the middle of the room. A few potted trees rested in two of the corners, the other two taken up by small tables with trays of cheeses and fruit and a pitcher with glasses for drinks. The wall behind the tall chair at the head of the table was covered with a white banner with the gold insignia of the Mistress: the stylized marking of the Skewed Throne—three slashes; one horizontal, the two others angled down and out from that, one shorter than the other. All of the remaining walls were bare.

  There were six people waiting at the table. Avrell and Nathem I already knew, both administrators of the Mistress, the First and Second respectively. Next to Nathem stood a woman I had never met before, broad shouldered and older, dressed in the Mistress’ whites, her face squinched up into a penetrating frown. With one quick glance, she took in my brown breeches, soft-skin shoes, and the loose linen shirt Erick had borrowed from one of the guardsmen. Then she harrumphed and shook her head in disapproval. The shirt was too large and the breeches itched, but the shoes were well worn and comfortable. I shifted beneath her hostile glare, even though beneath the river she was completely gray and so not a real threat. Both Avrell and Nathem, dressed in the blue-and-gold robes of the Mistress’ order, appeared gray as well.

  But the three men on the other side of the table were not gray. Baill, captain of the palace guard, stood rigid, face set, hands folded comfortably over his sword belt. His eyes held mine with a reserved look, but they noticed everything: my clothes, my dagger, my hair hanging loose and uncombed about my face. His reaction was impossible to read. Beside him, also dressed in the burgundy silk shirts and brown breeches of guardsmen, were two men I did not know. The first was tall and thin, with the same cold, casual, dangerous look that surrounded Erick. A Seeker. He wore no visible weapons and nodded to Erick before turning his attention to me. When he saw my clothes, a small smile lit in his eyes and his lips twitched. The second man was shorter than the Seeker and wore a sword. He barely glanced in my direction. All three appeared red.

  After a long, uncomfortable moment, Avrell cleared his throat and said to the room in general, “May I present Varis, the Mistress of Amenkor.”

  Another awkward pause, and then everyone gave a short bow, Avrell and Nathem first, with Baill giving a belated brief nod at the end.

  Erick moved to the far side of the room and stood behind a high-backed chair, resting his hand on one corner of its back.

  “If the Mistress would care to sit,” Avrell said, motioning to the chair.

  I shot him a glare, but he was too much the diplomat to react. Nothing touched his dark brown eyes as he gave me a casual smile. He was too practiced, had spent too much time around Mistresses and the throne. To all appearances, my seizing of the throne had come as a pleasant surprise.

  But I didn’t trust him. If he’d helped Eryn to lure me to the throne room, then he’d manipulated me without remorse. And if not, then he’d hired me to kill her, betraying the woman he was supposed to protect. I couldn’t afford to trust him.

  Captain Baill was no better. Numerous merchants within the city had been murdered during the last year by a consortium of men led by the merchant Alendor in an attempt to take over all of the city’s trade. Baill had been suspected of helping the consortium, although he’d done nothing but what the previous Mistress had commanded, so nothing could be proved.

  Uneasy, I glanced around the room once more, then stepped around Avrell’s side of the room to the chair. As I moved, the guards posted outside the room closed the door behind me and all but Avrell and Erick took seats.

  “Let’s begin by introducing everyone,” Avrell said. “Avrell Tremain, the First of the Mistress.” He bowed his head again, then motioned to his left. “This is Nathem Ordaven, the Second of the Mistress—”

  “I know.”

  Nathem seemed startled and somewhat nervous, his brow creasing in thought as he tried to figure out how I knew him. But we’d never met officially. I only knew him because I’d overheard Avrell speaking with him about the Mistress while I was inside the palace, on my way to the throne room.

  “I see,” Avrell said smoothly. But he shared a troubled glance with Erick that made me smile with satisfaction. He moved on, motioning to the woman. “Matron Ireen is the head of the Mistress’ servants. She’ll handle all of your needs—clothing, food, whatever you want. She’ll want to speak with you at length after the meeting.”

  Ireen had shifted forward, ready to speak, but under Avrell’s glare she sank back in her seat and crossed her arms on her ample chest with a grunt.

  Avrell turned toward Baill. “And this is Captain Baill Gorret of the palace guard. I’ll leave it to you to introduce the others, Captain Baill.”

  Baill gave Avrell a dark
look, then stood and motioned to his right. “Karl Westen, Captain of the Seekers, and Arthur Catrell, Captain of the city guard.”

  He sat as the other two guardsmen nodded.

  An unsettled silence followed, as if everyone were waiting for something. Captain Catrell sighed and shifted with nervous agitation, his gaze darting around the spare room as if distracted. Nathem still seemed deep in thought. Baill simply stared at me, his expression unreadable, neither curious like most of the others, nor contemptuous.

  For a long moment, I stared back, but then I shifted my gaze to Avrell. “What have you done with the previous Mistress, Eryn?”

  Caught off guard, Avrell sat forward and in an uncertain voice said, “I didn’t know what to do with her. We’ve never had an . . . ex-Mistress, so to speak. So I assigned her rooms in the palace and allowed her to keep her usual servants.” He recovered his poise as he spoke. “She’s been part of the palace since she was eight, and she doesn’t really have any other place to go. Were there . . . other arrangements you wished to make?”

  I frowned. With a simple inflection, he’d made it sound as if any other arrangements would be unreasonable.

  “No,” I said grudgingly. I didn’t know if keeping her in the palace was a mistake or not, but for now I was willing to wait.

  But I felt as if I’d been manipulated again, the decision taken away from me.

  With irritation I didn’t bother to suppress, I asked, “What did you want to talk about?”

  “There are many things to discuss,” Avrell said, nodding as if the meeting were back on track. “The blockade of the harbor, the work to be done in the warehouse district after the recent fire, the food shortage and the advent of winter, the sudden cessation of communication with the Boreaite Isles, but I think the first thing that needs to be discussed is the—”

  “I think,” Baill interrupted, voice loud to override Avrell. Avrell’s gaze narrowed as he looked across the table at Baill; Baill’s gaze never shifted away from me. “I think the first thing that needs to be discussed is how Varis managed to get into the throne room of the palace without being discovered by the guard.”

  Nathem drew in a sharp breath, and Captain Catrell’s attention suddenly focused as he shifted forward in his chair.

  With a casual movement, Baill turned to Avrell. “She couldn’t have done it without help,” Baill continued. His voice was as calm and collected as Avrell’s, but there was a deadlier undercurrent to it, a threat of violent death.

  Avrell did not flinch. “I helped her. I let her in through the tunnels beneath the outer walls, gave her maps of the palace, and told her the movements of the guards.”

  The captain of the city guard grunted as if punched. “You compromised the Mistress’ security? What for?”

  Avrell glanced toward Captain Catrell, but only briefly, his eyes dropping to the table before turning back to Baill with a challenge. “I wanted Varis to kill the Mistress.”

  There was a brief moment of silence. Then Captain Catrell stood and in a surprisingly smooth movement brought his sword to bear, the blade reaching across the table toward Avrell’s throat without wavering.

  “Then you are a traitor,” he said simply.

  No one in the room moved. Avrell held the gaze of the captain of the city guard, not even glancing down at the sword.

  “I made a vow to protect the throne and the city of Amenkor,” Avrell said with a tinge of disdain. “Not the Mistress herself.”

  To one side, I saw Baill frown and shift in his seat as if uncomfortable. He no longer seemed as certain as he had a moment before.

  “Besides,” Avrell continued, turning his attention to me, still refusing to acknowledge the presence of the sword, “I could only get Varis into the palace. There was nothing I could do about the guardsmen after that. It was the Mistress’ own luck that Varis made it to the throne room without being seen.”

  Avrell’s gaze locked onto mine, but it was completely unreadable. I thought about the key he’d given me to get into the inner sanctum of the palace, the key to the archer’s niche. But then I realized that Avrell was right. The key could only get me so far. It was the Mistress herself who had distracted the guards beyond that point.

  Grudgingly, feeling as if I’d been cornered again, forced into speaking against my will, I said, “It wasn’t luck.”

  With a glare at Avrell, I turned to Baill. “The Mistress—the previous Mistress—lured me to the throne room herself. She wanted me to ascend to the throne. She’s the one that diverted the guardsmen from the outer corridor so that I could enter the inner sanctum.”

  Baill considered for a long moment, his gaze never wavering from mine. Something flickered behind his eyes, there and then gone, too quickly for me to read. Then he nodded. “Lower your sword, Arthur. I believe her.”

  Captain Catrell hesitated, then resheathed his sword and sat down.

  “Now,” Avrell said. “About the food shortage—”

  “No.”

  A look of annoyance passed over Avrell’s face and he turned toward me with a frown. “No?”

  I drew in a deep breath and leaned forward, letting my anger touch my voice. I was tired of being manipulated. “If we’re going to discuss the food shortage, I want all the remaining merchants here. Borund in particular.”

  “But if we’re going to be able to find more resources to replace those lost in the fire in the warehouse district, we need to act quickly. Winter is approaching fast. We have only a few more days left to send out ships. After that, there won’t be enough time for the ships to travel to the other cities, trade and load cargo, and return before the seas become too rough for safe passage. We can’t wait for the merchants. We need to act now!”

  I glared at Avrell, and then felt something shift. A strange warmth enfolded me, and suddenly the room grew distant, as if somehow I’d taken a step back from the table, even though I was still seated.

  In a cold voice, I said, “The ships belong to the merchants, or are owned outright by their captains. I will not order them to sea without the merchant’s or the captain’s consent.”

  Without waiting for a response, I shifted my attention to Captain Catrell. “Can you send guardsmen to Merchant Borund’s manse?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then send them. Tell him the blockade on the harbor is lifted, that he may send ships out at once if he wishes, and that they are to find and buy whatever food they can and return. They will be compensated by the palace. Also tell him to gather together the resources he has left in the city, those that weren’t destroyed by the fire in the warehouse district. He is to bring a report to the palace tomorrow morning, early. Get from him the names of all of the remaining merchants in Amenkor and give the same message to them. I want the entire merchants’ guild to be represented at this meeting.”

  Captain Catrell stared, stunned, then nodded and said, “Very well.” He sat a little straighter in his seat and no longer seemed as distracted as before.

  Baill leaned forward. “So the blockade is to be lifted?”

  “Yes.”

  Baill nodded with approval and leaned back in his seat. Avrell had told Borund and me that Baill refused to lift the blockade, had made it seem as if Baill was at fault, that Baill’s claim that the Mistress had ordered the blockade kept even after the merchants protested was a lie. Now I began to wonder.

  What if Captain Baill had simply been following the Mistress’ orders? We had no evidence he’d been working for the consortium at all.

  “Was there anything else?” I asked, in a tone that suggested there shouldn’t be.

  Everyone in the room stilled, as if they’d all drawn a sharp breath and were holding it. No one said anything.

  I suddenly wanted to leave, the urge like a prickling sensation across my back. The room felt too hot, too closed in and dense. And still distant.
>
  I stood. “Good.”

  “But what of the guard patrols in the city?” Avrell said abruptly, standing as well. “And the arrangements for your servants?” He motioned toward Ireen.

  The prickling sensation across my back increased. “Keep the patrols. As for the servants. . . .” My gaze fell on Ireen, who sat forward expectantly, face set into a stern frown. “Do whatever you want.”

  The frown vanished, replaced by confused shock, followed by stern elation.

  I suddenly pitied the servants of the palace. Ireen seemed a harsh mistress.

  I stalked from the room, Erick following with a slight frown. I ignored Avrell’s attempt to catch my attention, but he raised his voice to shout after me, “We need to discuss the political situation with the rest of the coast! We’ll have to discuss it at some point!” The others stood awkwardly, nodding as I passed.

  Once out into the hall, I turned toward the Mistress’ chambers, four palace guardsmen falling into step behind Erick. As we moved through the corridors, passing servants in the hallways and rooms who paused in their work to gaze after the new Mistress with blatant curiosity, the sense of distance dissipated and the tension in my shoulders loosened. But I still felt agitated. The river roiled around me, but I didn’t want to let it go. All I could think about was Avrell. And Baill.

  Back in the Mistress’ chambers, I began pacing the room, Erick closing the doors behind us, the four guardsmen remaining outside, two in the corridor and two in the antechamber.

  “You will have to speak to Avrell at length,” Erick said. “He can tell you everything you need to know about being the Mistress. At least regarding the everyday workings of the palace.”

  I frowned but didn’t answer, circled the room, to the bed, the low table with the basin and pitcher of water, the doors looking out onto the balcony. Someone had entered while I was gone, had drawn back the curtains and opened the doors so that the breeze could enter the room. I could see the entrance to the harbor, the view slightly different from what I’d seen from the rooftop. This looked out along the southern jut of land, rather than the main part of the city and the river. But the view didn’t hold me, and I returned to the bed.