Decker tried to make sense of what he was hearing, continuing to place one foot after the other, crunching the snow with a deliberately shortened stride to stay in step with her. Too preoccupied with the implications of Keethro being forever gone, he gave no second thought to how Keethro and Kilandra had managed to keep such a secret hidden from the gossiping girls of their clan. It was as if Kilandra said exactly what he wished to hear, and he welcomed the words. He dug his thumbnail into his index finger and smiled at what the pain told him. She is unclaimed and in need of someone to protect her.
“Your father may return, that is true, but he will return alone. Of this I am sure. And we must accept that it may be a near eternity before that can happen. How far must one travel to find what he seeks? To lands so distant that none of our people have ever gone and returned to speak of them.”
“It may be a very long time, but he will return. And not before he has acquired the remedies he seeks.” Decker heard his unshakable pride, and thought it justified.
“Yes, no doubt he will.” Kilandra kept her eyes forward as she spoke, not looking at Decker, though he glanced at her often. “We will be on our own until then. The elders are wise, but too weak to lead. They have long warned of our need to unite and move south, a thing I also worry is true, yet a new year comes, and we remain divided. I fear we are without the leadership to accomplish such a thing.”
“We have just led the greatest of raids upon the Dogmen. You have no reason to fear for your wellbeing.” Kilandra did not seem impressed, perhaps because none of her family had been involved in the raid. “I will see to it myself that both you and your young and beautiful daughter are taken care of.”
Kilandra tensed at his description of Red. Decker understood the implication, and after a moment of regret, he realized having said so was no blunder at all. Decker was not a fool, nor was he without weaponry when it came to seduction—she had only temporarily disarmed him. He would have to tread carefully though, as he could not expect the tricks that worked on susceptible girls to have the same effects on this more cunning prey.
“I am truly flattered and appreciate your offer. But do you believe that you will be able to continue to launch such successful campaigns without the aid of your brother? How long will it be before the Dogmen poison those lands too, and move yet farther south?”
The mention of his brother brought back all of Decker’s anguish and worry. He had looked in on Titon earlier that day, and his condition was unimproved. He still drew breath but was not truly alive. Titon had become like their mother in a sense, but whereas their mother could swallow food and kept her eyes open when awake, albeit gazing blankly into some unseen distance, Titon did none of those things. He would not live for long, and the most they could do to nourish him was sit him up and put honeyed water in his mouth, very little of which seemed to make it down. Even if Titon did survive long enough to awaken, the clan’s healers spoke of others who had risen from such states who were never the same. If I have beaten my brother, the keenest man I have ever known, to the point of becoming simple… The thought gave Decker such a profound disgust with himself that he nearly heaved.
“You must not blame yourself.” Her words were both stern and soothing. “We all saw what happened, and it was no fault of your own.”
He started, wondering how she had read his thoughts, but soon realized they must be plastered upon his face. With some effort, he managed to soften his look of self-reproach.
“He gave you no choice. Please…” She slowed her pace and turned to Decker. “You must be strong, if not for yourself, for the rest of us. We need you.” Her forlorn expression pleaded with him for comfort, and her lips pleaded with him for contact. But he still pictured Titon’s helpless face as he lay on the ground, mouth open, staring into nothingness.
“Strength is not what I lack.”
“Then you will lead us? You will unite us?” She asked as if expecting him to deny her this most imperative request.
I have failed too many. I will not fail this one. It seemed her wheedling was all he needed to forge an unbreakable resolve. “I will unite our clans, and I will lead them south where we will take lands so rich you will never be cold or hungry.”
She smiled softly and returned to his side where they continued their walk. Decker’s thoughts returned to gentler things such as the sway of her hips. His arm was around the pronounced curve of her lower back now, and with his hand wrapped around her waist, he could feel her sensuous motion.
“Would you come inside and help me to start a fire? Red is staying with a friend, and it looks as though she has forgotten to put more wood on before she left.”
Decker had not noticed they had been walking to her home, but he could not think of a more welcome destination. “I’d be happy to help,” he said, trying his best to hide his yearning.
“I have a torch and coat you can borrow on your way back,” she said, crushing Decker with the sincerity in her voice. She sounded as if there were no other alternative, and Decker chided himself for believing that there may have been. But as Kilandra moved to go inside, she squeezed herself unnecessarily close between him and the door, brushing against the front of his hips.
A more cunning prey, he reminded himself, his hope renewed.
CASSEN
The faint aroma of citrus and dandelion drifted through the room. Cassen took pride in his ability to exercise tasteful restraint, and the two solitary candles burning at either end of his grand dining table reminded him of his superiority to most men in that regard. Tasteful restraint in all things, save my silks. But Cassen had reason enough for all of his actions, even those contrary to his careful disciplines.
He had arranged for an intimate supper that was to be served shortly. He would be receiving a special guest, one whom he planned to charm with all the contrivances at his disposal. Food, wine, false flattery, these would all be served in careful portions tonight. Not too much wine, he reminded himself. It was important that his guest clearly remember the events of the night so that he did not awake the next day thinking it had all been a dream.
“Sir Collin to see you, Duchess.” The voice of one of his boy servants heralded the expected arrival.
The man who entered was no knight. He wore the simple brown cloth indicative of servantry, but he was too old to be under Cassen’s employ. He looked to be somewhere on the lower end between twenty and thirty years, with the body of a man but the face of a boy. I could never have male servants of such an age. People might form the wrong impressions. Cassen’s smirk did not reach his face.
“Sir Collin, welcome! And thank you for making the time to see me.” The more Cassen studied the man, the less he wanted to do what he had intended, but a little pride was a small price to pay, he resolved. Collin had a face so ordinary it bordered on being offensive. His chin was nonexistent, and his hair was a mess of short, brown ringlets, the strands of which clung together as if they had not been washed in some time. Even for a servant he seemed overly dowdy.
“Please, have a seat.” Cassen motioned to the empty chair at the far end of the table. Although not looking entirely comfortable with the situation, the man conceded, sitting across from Cassen separated by a good ten paces. “I assume you had a pleasant trip in spite of the distance. It is a lovely carriage, is it not? I had it sent from Rivervale and often use it myself. The carriages made here are simply inferior. Every pit and rock their wheels encounter do jolt one so. Gives my bones such an ache.” Cassen gave his guest no time to respond. “Can I offer you a drink? We have some Rivervalian Red, but the Sacaran Whiteleaf is by far the finer choice. I do believe I am the only one who has access to such a rare specimen, as it comes from ports far to the south with whom we no longer do trade.”
The man hesitated before responding. “I am sorry, I am not much of a wine man. Any mead or ale will do, or just some water. But I must ask—”
“Yes, of course,” Cassen interrupted. “Fetch some mead for our guest.” The se
rvant boy raced to comply.
An honest man, but even honest men crave power. “I can become absolutely parched during the trip from the Throne—no matter how much I drink along the way. But it is not so bad traveling during the winter. I suppose it means little to you with no reference of comparison.” Cassen beamed a smile at his guest. “I am sure you would like to know why I have summoned you here, and I assure you, I will explain. But first, let us drink.”
The servant was back with a pewter stein overflowing with froth and beaded with condensation. Cassen raised his glass containing a wine of greenish amber. “To new friends.”
Collin raised his mug in kind and drank after he saw Cassen do the same. Before either man had returned their drinks to the table a servant was beside each of them with their first dish.
“Lamb ribs with a sweet garlic and rosemary crust. A mint butter sauce accompanies to the side.” The servant departed upon completing the description.
“I find it to be so much more pleasing to know exactly what it is I am sinking my teeth into,” Cassen said. He plucked from his plate one of the pair of dainty ribs that leaned artfully against one another, then removed the meat with one scraping bite. Quite delectable. He let his satisfaction show on his face.
Collin must have been worried that he was the butt of some joke or trick as he seemed fearful to touch his food. Cassen pretended not to notice. The man would relax soon enough. “So tell me, Collin, where do you come from, and what is it that you do?”
“I am a servant in the main kitchens…Duchess…Cassen.” He had some obvious difficulty deciding how to address his host, as most people did.
“Oh, please, you may call me Cassen. I grow so tired of titles and formalities. Do go on. What about your family and origins?”
“My mother was a servant in the same kitchens. Didn’t know my father.”
“Ah a bastard. Please take no offense. It is an ugly term, and I apologize.” Cassen picked up the second rib. “You must try the lamb though. That is unless you are opposed to the eating of meat. It is a most unfortunate affliction that some are stricken with—the aversion to consuming flesh. I do not know how one could survive on mere beans, bread, and roughage.”
Collin obeyed and tasted one of the ribs. His eyes went wide, and he wasted little time devouring the second as well.
“We seem to have similar tastes, you and I. I wonder what else we may share in common. Do you know of my story?” Cassen inquired.
Collin was busy chewing and rushed to swallow. “I… There are many stories about you…Cassen.”
I must not frighten the man to the point of vomiting and ruining this lovely supper. “I am sure the most entertaining one would have to do with the way I became, well, the way that I am. A eunuch, though I do hate the word. I suppose you have similar feelings about the word bastard, after all. Go on, tell me what you have heard.”
Collin peered around the room in the fashion of someone who is about to tell a vulgar story not fit for a general audience. He may have just as easily been looking for guards about to rush out of dark corners and arrest him for some accidental misdeed, however.
“They say that your, ehm, parts were removed prior to you coming into Duke Calder’s service. As an apprentice. I think?”
Collin flinched when the two servants suddenly reappeared with their second course.
“Dragon tails, lightly battered and sizzled until crisp, atop a sweet and fiery vinegar sauce.”
“Oh, this is one of my favorites.” Cassen immediately removed one of the two curved bodies of fried meat from the other’s seemingly coital embrace. He grasped it by the tail and squeezed so that the meat contained in the final section of its thin-shelled armor popped free and into his mouth along with the rest of it. When he was done chewing he explained to Collin, who looked somewhat afraid, “They come from the Eastern Sea and are quite the delicacy.”
“I have seen them prepared in the kitchens, but have never had the pleasure.” The look on his face confessed that he anticipated no pleasure in eating such a thing.
“Never so much as snuck one? I promise, I will not tell a soul.” It certainly looks as though you have been sneaking something from the kitchens. “I do insist you try one. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”
“No, I am afraid they are quite strict.” Collin lifted one of the shelled creatures and inspected it before taking a bite, though not near as expertly as Cassen as to remove all the meat. Collin’s eyebrows rose as he continued to chew.
“See, I would not lie to you.”
“They are very good. I would not have guessed. We call them sea bugs. They look quite different with their heads on.” Collin seemed truly pleased to have discovered a new edible treat.
Good, you enjoy pleasant surprises.
“Where were we now?” Cassen continued. “Oh yes, my parts. I am afraid your story lacks some detail, but I will spare you the embarrassment and tell you myself. Calder, the Duke of Eastport—though it was not quite the city then that it is today,” Cassen added with contentment. “He was in need of an assistant, apprentice, or what have you. He wanted, as all do, someone whom he could trust, but he was not a trusting man by nature. Calder was responsible for his niece, Crella, who was quite young then. She lived with him, and as you likely know, her mother died young and her father, the king, not long thereafter of the same affliction. Crella was, and always has been, beautiful—a true symbol of Adeltian elegance. It was imperative to the duke to find someone who could live with him and his niece. Someone to assist him in the difficult duties of running the city, while—and this was most important—posing no danger to her.
“Eunuchs are a rare breed I suppose, for lack of a better term, and Calder put out an open request for one such person to become his assistant, a role which lent itself to succession. There were, of course, no highborn eunuchs, so the offer was open to the rest of us. I was a young man of fifteen years at the time, and I was lowborn. The lowest of lowborn. The opportunity for such advancement prior to this announcement was inconceivable.”
Cassen took a sip of his wine, taking a moment to revel in his savvy.
“I decided to take matters into my own hands, quite literally in fact. I personally delivered my application, and along with it I included the very parts of my being that would have precluded me from applying, had they still been attached.”
Cassen watched as Collin lifted his mug of mead and took a long pull. He was pleased to see that he’d managed to finish his other dragon tail during the story, and Cassen finally consumed his own. Had I served the sausage in peppered gravy as I had wished… Better that I did not.
“And you must now be wondering why it is that I am telling you all this. Have no fear. I have no desire for you to follow in those footsteps. I am merely bringing to light the often forgotten fact—that I was a man, both of body and appetite.”
The servants returned, replacing their empty plates with their final course.
“A simple cake of cream and strawberry.”
Two small pieces of a spongy, spiral-shaped cake were plated, one leaning atop the other. I wonder if my friend has noticed a theme in tonight’s dishes.
Collin appeared to still be at a loss for words, indicating as much by putting the first piece of his cake in his mouth.
“Your mother was always well cared for, was she not? She never went cold or hungry as servants often do.” Servants did not often go cold or hungry—not in the Throne—but Cassen did not think it would prevent the statement from seeming somehow meaningful.
“She never ate like this,” Collin joked. He may have found the conversation awkward, but he was clearly enjoying the food. Cassen was sure the man had never had such an incredible meal—even if he had been stealing from the kitchens. He probably has never had so small a meal either. It was Cassen’s intent to leave his guests, this one most of all, wanting more. A taste is all you get. Obey me and there is the promise of more.
“No, few people do. Bu
t my point is that both you and your mother have been cared for beyond that of what would be expected for a normal servant. And when your mother went ill, she had the best of the city’s menders attend to her, in secret, of course. It was a shame they could not find the cure for her exotic ailment. It brought me sadness to know she had passed.”
“You knew my mother?” Collin had a look of disbelief on his face. He had finished his first mug of mead, and a servant, after glancing discretely at Cassen for permission, was refilling it.
“Yes, I knew your mother. She and I were very close prior to my running off to play duke-in-training. It was difficult for us to part, but she understood the reasons. People such as we were could not afford to pass up any opportunity for self-betterment.”
Collin drained his mug, likely to help him make sense of the information as well as fill the void left in his belly from such a miniscule supper. Cassen waited patiently for the man to come to the obvious conclusion.
“You knew my mother before I was born?”
Peace forgive me, must I spell it out? “That I did, my son.” Cassen mellowed his usual femininity to help the fool better conceive that which he was being told.
Horror filled Collin’s eyes. “How?” he asked, as if the implication was that he was some spawn of demons.
Cassen resisted the urge to shake his head. “As I just explained, I was not always this way. I was a man much like you.” Very little like you, in all fairness to me.
Collin slowly seemed to grasp how it may be possible, as if the previous notion of Cassen knowing his mother involved them sipping tea together and gossiping about the most handsome men, both in and out of reach. He looked to his empty mug as if to find some serenity there, and Cassen motioned to the servant to give him another half.
“So you see, Collin, all of this,” Cassen gestured toward the table covered in finery, “could one day be yours. I certainly will not be producing any more heirs.”
The Axe and the Throne (Bounds of Redemption Book 1) Page 31
