by JF Smith
He threw himself carelessly into the richly stitched cushions of another chair, closed his eyes, and tried to relax. Everything in his world was coming to a fine point and the next few weeks would see his world changed entirely. He would be king. He would be married. He wished he could feel more enthusiasm for any of it instead of the heavy quarry stone in his gut. He wished he could feel more confidence in himself instead of the doubt and pretense that was there in its place. But such had been his lot for every day of his life, and that feigned conviction, more than anything else, had prepared him for the weight about to fall onto his shoulders, which he would carry for all of his remaining days.
Thaybrill stood in the dim light of his chamber, amidst dancing shadows thrown by the few candles lit and the small fire in the carved fireplace. He found the vestibule that led to the terrace outside of his room and stepped out into the night air. He breathed deeply the cooler, cleaner air, which helped clear his head as he ran his hands through his light brown hair, pulling it back behind his shoulders.
In the dark of the night, he crossed the terrace out onto the palace grounds and looked up at the stars. The Domo had instructed him that the Maqarans did not hold to the belief that their ancestors became stars in the night sky if they merited the honor, which struck him as very strange. He had spent some time discussing it at length back at the Folly with the Archbishop. Thaybrill had asked what became of them if they didn’t become stars. In Iisen, if you did not bring honor to your family, then you did not ascend to the stars on your death. Instead, your soul sank to the bottom of the dark ocean, where it drowned perpetually until the end of time; it was the worst of all punishments. He had asked the Archbishop what kind of culture could exist in a stable form if everyone shared the same fates equally, no matter the good or bad in them. The Archbishop had explained, despite his limited knowledge of the religion practiced in Maqara, that they held there were still rewards and punishments to go with the character you displayed in life, just not the same ones as in the Iisendom.
He wished that he came away from conversations with the Domo Regent the way he did with the Archbishop — that he understood better and that he had learned something.
Thaybrill studied the sky until he found the Trine Range constellation, and then within it, the very stars that had been identified by the Archbishop’s interpreters as being those of his father, King Colnor veLohrdan, the fifth of the name, and his mother, Queen Sophrienne. To the west, Pelaysha occupied her spot in the sky, fat and happy and ready to interfere with the lives and intentions of men. To the east, Vasahle was barely peeking over the horizon and would soon make her swift trek across the sky for the night, brilliantly lighting all below in her cool blue light.
With a heavy heart, he thought of the several things standing in the way of proving his worth and honor to his ancestors. Certainly, there was more than one of them, and as the Archbishop and the interpreters had explained to him, one was never sure if one had entirely overcome obstacles to one’s place in the sky or not. All one could do was strive to be the best person he could be every day. It could be discouraging, knowing how much your ancestors could see, though. It was, in ways, embarrassing to know how little of your actions and intentions and desires you could hide from them. And that he never had the chance to know his own parents for a single day of his life made it all the more difficult for him. To the prince, it was as if utter strangers sat in judgment of his life.
With his head turned skyward and the stars of his parents, grandparents, and ancestors reaching back hundreds of years over him, Thaybrill sank to one knee. He prayed to his father for patience with the Maqarans, for integrity in taking the affairs of the state into his hands, and for strength to submit to a marriage that he did not want but which was best for the country he would rule and serve. He prayed that he would be worthy, not only of the line of veLohrdan, but of all of Iisen, that he would be a just and wise leader. He told his father, as he had on so very many occasions, how he wished he had been able to learn strength and character and honor from him in person. He told his mother how he wished he had been able to learn compassion and selflessness from her. He asked them both, and all of his ancestors in the Trine Range, for whatever support they would see fit to send him so that he may be held worthy of them and of the Iisendom.
And on his bended knee, he told his parents again how he wished he had been able to know them while they were alive and that, more than anything, he wished to make them proud of him.
His supplication and reverence finished, Thaybrill stood and continued to look up into the night sky in simple wonder. He wondered how he would endure a marriage not built on love or affection. He wondered how in the world he would become the respected monarch his father had been when he still felt so unprepared. He walked back to the palace and his chamber door, alone and full of too many questions that seemed to have no answers.
Inside, a faint sound caught his attention behind him as he closed the tall wooden doors. He turned and saw something lying on his bed, but could not identify it in the weak light. He approached and stopped when he recognized the form of Princess Quannah reclining on his bed, her head propped up on one arm as she watched him.
His voice froze, but Quannah spoke first, “You’ve kept me waiting. I was wondering when you’d return.”
It was the most she had ever said to him at one time by far, and Thaybrill glanced nervously around. He said, “I... was outside, admiring the night and clearing my head.”
“Hmmm...” was Quannah’s delicately indifferent response.
Thaybrill’s head finally grasped the situation more clearly and he said to her without approaching any closer, “Princess, as happy as a conversation with you would make me, it would not do for you to be found in my bedchamber alone with me. You really should not be here.”
“Oh, but now is exactly the right time,” she said, sitting up on the bed. “All the formalities of the realm are over. Now it is down to you and me. But before we are to marry, surely you agree we must get to know one another?”
Thaybrill became increasingly nervous. The princess suddenly was a different girl than had sat next to him at dinner, and the change felt fraught with peril. The one who had appeared as “bored as a half-mule,” as the common saying went, now felt more like a stalking tigress.
“Uh... well, certainly, yes. But in daylight. Amongst other people. The proper way.”
Quannah stood from the bed and slowly approached Prince Thaybrill. She said, “Others get in the way and distract. You’ve expressed your interest carefully these last three days... and now is your chance.” She stopped in front of him and traced a finger down the pale gold pleats of his doublet. “So... know me,” she whispered.
Thaybrill stood, gaping in horror at what the princess was proposing. “Princess Quannah! This is absolutely not to happen! Your father would string me up from the nearest tree until my eyes popped from my head if he found out that I even allowed you into my chamber unescorted!”
She stepped closer and said, “Are you to be cowed by my father? Are you that much less man than he?”
Thaybrill glanced around, hoping to find a way out of the predicament. He wasn’t prepared for the wedding two months hence, and far less so for what she was proposing happen under the foreign king’s very nose. He backed up a step, his mouth gawping silently in the firelight, unable to form any words.
Quannah followed him and pressed herself to him. “Are you man at all?” she breathed.
Finally finding his voice, even if it was a quavering one, Thaybrill said, “Of course I am, but this is not about my manhood. I will not violate your honor or virtue this way, Princess! Please stop touching me so!”
“You mean like this?” she said, letting her hand drift lower until it came to rest between his legs. She cooed to him, “Show me what sort of man I am to marry!”
In the dark of the room, Thaybrill’s face flushed red enough to make a ripe tomato envious. He jerked back and stood so that a
chair was between him and the young princess. “Stop! I will not do this! You must leave at once, or I will!” he said with absolute finality. His head was pounding far more now than it had at dinner, and he could feel the sweat forming on his neck.
From somewhere else in the room, Thaybrill heard a gruff voice curse, “Filthy swine! What is wrong with you?!”
Thaybrill’s head swiveled, trying to locate the angry voice. From one of the shadowy alcoves in the room, Quannah’s father, King Azi himself, strode forward angrily and pointing at Thaybrill. He continued yelling, “This marriage is off! The girl throws herself at you, and you are not man enough to take what is yours?!”
Thaybrill stood frozen, shocked that the entire scene had been witnessed by the king of Maqara. Worse, if Thaybrill was making it out correctly, the king seemed angry that he had not violated his daughter.
“You worthless bugger!” the king shouted. “I’ll not have the emasculated likes of you enter into my family, not by a long shot! I’ll not have my empire aligned with such fatal weakness! Be gone! Be gone as soon as the light crests the horizon tomorrow!”
Thaybrill was bewildered for a moment until he realized that King Azi was saying that the marriage was being called off and everything had now fallen apart. All because he had not taken his daughter in an immoral way. Thaybrill’s confusion gave way to indignation and he rose to his full height and stood in front of the blustering, stocky monarch.
“Have you taken leave of your senses, King Azi?” demanded Thaybrill. “Am I truly to believe that because I did not force myself upon your precious daughter, you think of me as less a man and less worthy of you? You would offer your own flesh and blood to put me to this depraved test? Has the world turned completely backwards?!”
Thaybrill glanced over at Quannah and saw her standing quietly, head bowed and looking at the floor. In horror, he realized she had been forced into the situation against her will. By her own father.
King Azi thundered at the prince, “Of course, you filthy child! How else am I to know if you have the conviction and strength to rule as a member of my family? What else is a daughter for, except to find a worthy, decisive man to bring into the family? Why am I even bothering explaining this to you?! I want all of you gone tomorrow!”
The king stormed out of Thaybrill’s room, followed solemnly by Quannah, head dipped low and without so much as a look back at the prince a single time.
Thaybrill stood for an eternity in the empty room, his skin crawling at the very scene in which he had been forced to participate. It was barbaric, and so far beyond the other foolish, childish tests of character he had been forced to endure that he scarcely believed it.
But the unimaginable nature of King Azi, of how he used his own daughter as no more than a possession to evaluate Thaybrill’s most ruthless and carnal drives, of how he seemed to actually value those traits as desirable in a son-in-law, was not the only disastrous result of the evening.
The marriage was off, which meant a closer alliance with Maqara was off. Everything had been upended now and he was a failure before ever becoming king, all because he refused to avail himself of what Quannah was forced to offer while her father watched on to ensure he performed adequately. Thaybrill felt sick to his stomach at the perverse expectations the Maqarans had, at the fully inappropriate situation he was in, at the collapse of his world around his feet before it really even had begun.
He would have to return to his homeland in disgrace, all for not performing as an unscrupulous man. And it would all begin with four days’ travel marked by the constant reproach and condemnation from the Domo Regent for his failure.
The prince paced uneasily in his chamber, his mind spinning over the entire cataclysmic visit to Maqara. Thaybrill eventually undressed and put himself into the large bed and tried to fall asleep, but stared up at the roof over his head with unblinking eyes, feeling the most disconsolate he had ever felt in his lonely life.
Chapter 6 — Waylaid In The Ghellerweald
Gully awoke the next morning to a strong hand on his shoulder shaking him gently. He rolled over and looked up into Roald’s dark eyes, who stood over him, already dressed in his swordsman armor for his day on watch. His head pounded and he was unsure if it was from the mead the night before or from the tooth he had lost.
Roald said gently, “I would have let you sleep, but if you insist on leaving again today, I wanted to at least tell you good-bye and to wish you luck in your searches.”
Gully yawned and rolled back over. “Thank you,” he said. He expected Roald to leave, but instead he felt his foster brother sit down on the edge of the bed.
“Promise me you’ll be careful, Bayle,” said the swordsman. “I know how at home you are in the woods, but they are still dangerous. And you promised to be back in town before your birthday.”
“Oh, you remembered that?” asked Gully.
Roald laughed and said, “Remember that I hold my drink far better than you, brother. And your drunken stupor does not release you from having given your word!”
Gully ignored him, but felt his brother’s hand lay gently on the side of his face for a moment, lingering there until Gully reached up and pushed it away in mild irritation.
Roald chuckled and said, “You will first need to get out of this bed if you plan to get anything done today. It is already light outside.”
Roald stood from the bed, and Gully mumbled, “I’ve got plenty of time!”
“Piss and vinegar and still more piss!” commented Roald so that Gully could hear the good humor in his voice.
The door of the apartment opened and closed as Roald left to begin his day. Gully wanted to get up, but the thrumming in his head kept him lying still for a while longer. Unfortunately, Roald’s mention of piss made him begin to feel the urgency of getting up to relieve his strained bladder, but he stifled the need as long as he could.
He eventually roused himself and prepared for his trip back to the woods and his childhood home.
~~~~~
Gully hefted his sack into a better position on his back and passed through the city gate nearest the apartment. This time of the morning, he had chosen to follow the road that hugged the outside of the city walls rather than wander through the city itself to the southernmost gate. There would be fewer people and carts and mules this way and he would make better time.
He followed the road south, keeping the city wall on his left and the open fields of the farms that supplied Lohrdanwuld to his right. The sun was already peeking from between Thayhold and Kitemount in the east. Lohrdanwuld and the western face of the Trine Range looked out across the plains and gentle hills to the River Tib and beyond. There, the farms outside the city walls grew all manner of vegetables to keep up with the city’s demands — greens, carrots, tomatoes, onions, parsnips, radishes, and more. There were also fruits that grew there in the orchards to the south — bear pears, apples, apricots, and the staple pannyfruit that was so common throughout Iisen. There were even some farms that produced the Behndish tobacco that Roald occasionally smoked in the pipe that had belonged to his father. A deep breath brought to his nose the scents of the grasses and farms nearby, a familiar and comforting smell as he hiked along the road.
The stream of farmers with their carts pulled by sturdy half-mules or Belder horses and loaded with the day’s crop to sell in the various markets of the city was already tapering off. He glanced up at the top of the city walls, twenty feet high along this section of the city, and spied a few of the Kingdom Guard patrolling along the wall walks. He waved up at them and was pleased to see that they waved back to return his greeting. Gully laughed to himself thinking how these fellows were always so much more pleasant to deal with from a distance like this.
When he approached the turn in the rutted, dirt road as it followed the city walls to the southernmost gate, right at the foot of Kitemount, a man in front of a mule and cart called out as he approached Gully, “Ho there, Bayle!”
For a moment,
Gully was unsure whom it was hailing him since the farmer’s face was hidden under a broadly brimmed hat to keep the sun out of his eyes and off of his neck. As he got closer, Gully smiled and called back, “Delff! How are you?”
They stopped as they got even with each other to speak. Delff the farmer said, “Running late today. Me back is sore and took me longer to pick the radishes and carrots than what usual.”
Gully nodded and went to pet the man’s mule. He said, “And how are you today, Pepper?”
The mule shook Gully’s hand off and groaned slightly, in the same complaining dishumor as his master. Gully laughed and said, “But the vegetables look to be of top quality. As long as you can still get a spot to set up, you should do well today!”
Delff nodded as he took his hat off to wipe his brow. He said, “Aye. We shall see. The Chalk Market is probably all full up already, I expect.”
“You might try the South Peddle first, Delff. There were quite a number of vacant stalls yesterday. Could probably even get a deal on one from the market-master,” suggested Gully.
“The tip be much appreciated, Bayle. Are you back out to the woods again?”
“I am. Back to the cabin and then scouring the Ghellerweald for any signs.”
Delff sighed and said, “I wish ye luck, as always. Watch ye back for the cannibal monsters, though! I expect they to be hungry for even the sorry meal you would make, Bayle! I must go, though, or the city will be so cramped full they won’t let me even peek in through the gate!”
Gully waved him on and said, “On with you, then! Good luck selling today! I hope you make more coins than Pepper can carry home!”
“Aye,” grumbled the farmer, “you and the royal tax collector both! Always happy to lighten my coinpurse so much it puts me to no strain at all, he is!”
