“Yes, Father,” she said, dancing. “Oh, I can hardly wait. I haven’t seen them since I was five!”
“Sit down,” Queen Arlene said through clenched teeth.
Rafen was having a hard time swallowing his soup. This message was in response to King Robert’s letter about the incidents of three months ago, to which Rafen was a critical witness.
His face concerned, King Robert met Rafen’s eyes as if he could read his mind. In three months, Rafen would have to speak to the most powerful man in the Mio Pilamùr about Talmon and Tarhia, the two topics he hated most.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The General
Behind the curtains of his towering canopy bed, Rafen tried to read the book Queen Arlene had assigned him. He still found his room distracting, even though he’d had it for two weeks now. When the maid had first shown him into it, he had thought he was dreaming.
His chamber was elegantly furnished in the best of Sianian tastes. To the left was a yawning room of a wardrobe, with clothes tailored for him. To the right stood his own chest of drawers, a mirror on top of it. Once in the muddied waters of the Tarhian mine, Rafen had glimpsed his reflection in the torchlight. His face had been blackened with coal so only the pits of his eyes were really visible. Dirt clung to eyelashes framing dark blue eyes, heavily lidded and expressionless. But now he looked different somehow. His face was clean and even tanned from months at sea; yet his eyes had changed the most. They looked brighter… softer.
Rafen had eventually gotten past the doorway of his room, and the gigantic canopy bed and open arching window had forced themselves into his vision. Beyond the window, the palace gardens that surrounded the keep were visible. Rafen had frozen, staring around himself speechlessly. The maid had panicked, assumed he was ill, and brought him some broth to drink and ice to cool his forehead.
Rafen turned over the crinkled brown pages listlessly. He pulled back the curtain from around his bed, his eyes sliding from the book to the window. The evening sky was grayish blue, blending into the palest gold at the bottom where the sun set somewhere beyond the palace walls.
The two weeks since he had arrived in Siana had been the best of his life. The food was even better than it had been on the ship, and everything was so abundant, richly-colored, and peaceful. Bertilde’s company had become sacred to him.
Rafen had never lived so long without a beating.
In Siana, it was difficult to imagine any kind of danger. Alexander’s warnings to King Robert about his personal safety seemed distant, trivial. Rafen remembered how the admiral, now working at the New Isles Harbor, had trained King Robert and him to fence.
Something dropped into Rafen’s mind. Queen Arlene had said she had provided him with a sword. You must go to him two weeks from today in the evening if you want it.
Who was the man she had referred to? Rafen slammed the covers of the book shut and slipped off his bed. Jonas? Joseph? He would be back from his campaign tonight.
You will find him in the armory.
Half an hour later, Rafen had wended his way there. A series of columns, adorned with runes of the Phoenix Tongue, split the armory hall down the middle. The day’s last fingers of sunshine, accompanied with fragrant breezes, fell through the narrow arched windows along the right wall. The left wall was hung with broadswords and various shields, emblazoned with the Selson family’s heraldry: an ‘s’ within the rune for the phoenix, with seven four-pointed stars scattered about it. Dusty shelves and cabinets carrying smaller weapons stood dispersed about the hall.
Across from Rafen, a man Alexander’s height straightened beside one of these. He wore a vibrant coat of scarlet, the Sianian national color. The man’s knee-high black boots were caked with dirt. He had a thin, mustard yellow moustache, a cleft in his chin, and a nose crooked from previous breaks. Though his lined face was weary and smudged with dirt, he carried himself with uncompromised dignity.
His blue eagle eyes met Rafen’s.
Rafen flinched. It was like being in the circle of light from a guard’s torch in the Tarhian mines.
“Yes?” the man said.
Rafen tried to figure out what he had been going to say when he had decided to meet this man. “Uh…”
“I do not believe we’ve met.” The man approached Rafen. “I am General Jacob Aneurin. You must be Rafen. You have come for this.”
Jacob Aneurin held out to him a sword in a plain black scabbard the length of Rafen’s leg. The silver pommel gleamed in the dying light.
Rafen met Jacob’s austere gaze.
“You may take it,” Jacob said.
Receiving it, Rafen gently drew the sword from the scabbard. The shadows in the armory emphasized the pale silver of the blade. The hilt felt good in his left hand. Rafen smiled. He had suddenly found the rest of his arm.
“You hold that well,” Jacob commented, watching him.
“It is…” Rafen searched fruitlessly for the word he wanted.
“Beautiful,” Jacob finished for him. “The lords want the weighty, cumbrous swords with gaudy jewels. Yet a plain sword that fits the Master’s hand is worth more than gold.”
Rafen nodded.
“I hear the admiral has been teaching you to fence. He says he found a good pupil in you.”
Rafen glanced from the sword to the general.
“Would you like to test your blade against mine?” the general asked.
Rafen recoiled. A guard in Tarhia had once claimed he would teach Rafen to defend himself. Rafen still remembered the angry welts he had raised all along his back. Alexander had won Rafen’s trust. He had risked his life to rescue him. Yet Rafen did not know Jacob at all.
“Perhaps not now, sir.”
“I won’t hurt you, Rafen.”
Jacob removed his long broadsword from his belt and laid it aside. Retrieving another sword from the collection on the left wall, he unsheathed it and ran his hand along the length to show Rafen it was blunt.
Rafen hesitated. Then nodding to Jacob, he stepped forward and drew his own sword. A fond memory flashed across his mind – the vision of fighting Talmon on the back of a dragon.
He positioned himself perfectly. Jacob walked around him once, making sure everything was correct. Then he too assumed ‘guarde’, clutching the blunt sword he had taken, and lunged without warning.
Rafen forgot the general’s sword wasn’t sharp. He forgot Queen Arlene had sent him to this man. He fought frantically – parry, thrust, parry – and Jacob was jabbing at his chest with that pointy stick of metal. Rafen threw himself sideways, making sure he never let his guard down, stabbing at Jacob’s coat cuffs, and then at his side. Jacob’s counterattack was so strong that when their swords met it felt like hitting a stone pillar. Before Rafen knew it, he was against the left wall where the sword collection was. With a yell, he ducked a blow aimed at his neck, and made a desperate thrust at his opponent’s lower torso. Jacob intercepted his sword mid-thrust, shoved it downward, and gave it a sharp twist, sending it flying from Rafen’s hand. Like lightning, his own blade shot up and pinned Rafen’s chest to the wall. Feverishly, Rafen glanced down, expecting to see blood spurting from beneath his collar bone. Thankfully, the tip of Jacob’s sword merely rested against Rafen’s linen shirt. Rafen breathed more freely.
Jacob, who neither panted nor sweated, smiled. “There is potential.”
Wishing Jacob would withdraw his sword, Rafen stood there gasping for air.
“Our lessons will start tomorrow, the second hour after noon. You may not be brilliant, but at least you have instinct.”
He sheathed his sword. Rafen’s muscles relaxed, and he started scanning the room for his weapon and scabbard.
“Rafen?” Jacob said the name almost tentatively. “Do you worship Zion?”
“Worship?” Rafen raised an eyebrow.
“You need not say it as if it is torture,” Jacob said. “I merely think you should. I have heard you come from Tarhia, and they are all heathens there, to be
sure. Yet you bear the Phoenix’s name.”
Rafen crossed the hall to where his scabbard lay near the arched windows. With irresistible longing, he remembered the woods and the stone wall he had once seen. The only interest he had in the Phoenix was in having a feather. Still, after his practice round with Jacob, he knew better than mentioning this. Picking up his scabbard, he faced the general.
“Perhaps you do not realize how much trouble my name caused for me in Tarhia – sir,” he said with quiet venom.
*
“Jacob, I want to speak to you about the orphan you have been teaching these past few days,” Queen Arlene said.
Clasping her amethyst necklace, Etana wriggled into a more comfortable position behind the scarlet tapestry in the sitting room of her mother’s private wing. She didn’t often eavesdrop.
Bambi had been tormenting her about how her mother preferred Rafen to herself. Etana had known this for months and had never allowed herself to give conscious thought to it. It was what she deserved, after leaving Rafen behind in the Tarhian palace. At last, the time had come when she could ignore it no longer.
“The boy is not safe,” Queen Arlene plunged on. “He is… hunted.”
“Highness? By whom? I understand Talmon despises him, but he would sooner attack your husband than pursue a mere boy.”
“My husband takes that into account. He has been tightening security for weeks,” Queen Arlene said sharply. “The guards and your men became lazy whilst he was away.”
General Aneurin stood in guilty silence, while Etana shifted agonizingly to make sure her feet were not visible from beneath the tapestry.
She’s more worried about Rafen’s safety than mine, she thought, a cold finger laying itself on her heart.
“Robert informed me while we were at sea that Rafen has had interviews with Thomas’ murderer,” Queen Arlene said.
General Aneurin sucked in his breath sharply, and Etana stopped breathing altogether.
“We believe it is because of his name,” Queen Arlene went on. Her soft footfalls told Etana she was now pacing back and forth. “Rafen seems to know the translation of his name, but he doesn’t realize he is in numerous prophecies. Perhaps you wonder why we have not executed him according to the Sianian law for those bearing that name. In these circumstances, it does not qualify as blasphemy because we do not know who the child’s parents were, and he did come out of the East, as the prophecies say. Therefore there is a chance, however slight, that he is the actual Rafen whom we have long awaited, and not one of the many frauds that litter our history books. That the Lashki Mirah has taken interest in him is more evidence that he may be the genuine article. I want you to make sure one of your men watches him in all his activities and guards his door at night. He must not go anywhere alone, and is not to leave the palace. My husband and I will see to the boy’s kesmalic protection.
“I lost my father and my betrothed to the Lashki,” she said, now whispering. “He will not take Rafen.”
“Your Highness.” The general’s sword clinked at his side when he bowed.
“And Jacob?” Queen Arlene said. “The boy is of a suspicious nature. I trust you’ve discovered this. Don’t let him know he is being watched.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
General Aneurin’s footsteps retreated from the sitting room. Mutely, Etana shuddered. It was bad enough discovering the invincible Lashki Mirah had not really vanished, as people had once thought. Now she saw him in her mind – decaying and angular, like they described him – with his rod embedded in Rafen’s chest. She might have been envious of Rafen, but she liked him well enough. She felt sick.
Chapter Thirty
King Albert
and Richard Patrick
It wasn’t long before Rafen had been in Siana three months. He was annoyed at himself for letting time slip away so fast. There was so much to see, to hear, to enjoy. Queen Arlene continued educating him, and Rafen’s reading became better and better. He now wrote longer reports for her and studied things like herbs and different kinds of minerals. To Rafen’s satisfaction, Annette kept mostly to herself in her own area of the keep, and he managed to slip away when she didn’t. Rafen’s fencing lessons were also going well, and Jacob appeared pleased with his progress. Though Rafen was fit from mine work, his muscles still ached unbearably at times. Gradually, his body became accustomed to the different kind of labor: one more like dancing than conflict.
In his leisure time, Rafen was often allowed to wander the palace gardens with Bertilde, a luxury that quickly became torture. He was turning into a boring companion, lapsing into frequent silences. No one ever let him leave the palace. The woods he saw from his window were calling him.
When he discovered shadowy figures following him wherever he went, Rafen started wearing his sword at his belt.
“Why do you do that, Rafen?” Bertilde would ask. “Isn’t it uncomfortable to sit down when you’re wearing that? No one’s going to hurt you now.”
I’ll make sure they won’t, Rafen thought savagely.
“Come, Bertilde,” King Robert said. “Rafen is a good lad. He knows how to be cautious.”
Rafen often wished he could talk to Etana about things, particularly the woods and the spies. He knew she would understand. But she too had lessons, and they were stricter than Rafen’s. Whenever Rafen saw her, she was muttering definitions with her head in a huge volume.
Bertilde would whisper to him, “Mother wants Etana to do much, much better than she is doing, and I think Etana will do anything to please Mother and Father, don’t you?”
The time of King Albert’s and Prince Richard Patrick’s arrival came all too quickly. One evening, Bertilde and Robert retrieved Rafen from a late lesson with Jacob and escorted him to the throne room.
“They’re here,” Bertilde said breathlessly.
Rafen deliberately walked slower.
“Blood of the Phoenix, pick up your feet, Rafen!” Robert exclaimed. “You’ll regret it if you’re late for these people.”
Rectangular with a floor checked deep red and pearl white, the throne room gave the impression of a vibrant chess board. Along the right wall, long thin windows let in the day’s last sunlight. At the far end stood an imposing throne made of oak gilded with gold and softened with a plush scarlet seat. His face folded into worry lines, King Robert stood beside it, clutching the armrest.
The rest of his family clustered about him. A towering, broad-shouldered man with a black beard running down his chest stood before the Selsons. King Albert wore the most ridiculous outfit Rafen had ever seen. It had gigantic puffed sleeves, and the train of the cloak spread in a huge, dark pool on the floor.
“I’m most disappointed only you and Arlene came to welcome us at the Harbor, Robert,” King Albert was saying severely, his face to the windows. “It would have been appropriate for your entire family to be present.”
His back to Rafen, another male figure Bertilde’s height stood beside King Albert. He was young with a slender build devoid of visible muscle. His dazzling blond hair was swept dashingly across the top of his perfectly oval head. A group of servants fawned over him, removing his knee-length coat and presenting him with chalices of various fortifying drinks, all of which Richard denied with a wave of his white, girlish hand.
“Ah, Rafen!” King Robert exclaimed, exuding relief at his presence. “Thank you for finding him, Bertilde and Robert.”
King Albert and Richard Patrick faced the three latest arrivals. Rafen’s stomach sank to his thighs. Richard eyed him suspiciously with eyes of the palest blue. The Sartian prince had a sculpted nose with wide nostrils, and his forehead was furrowed, giving the impression of maturity. His stare along with the gaze of his father, who had a bloated face and beady eyes of no discernible color, was enough to make Rafen feel like backing out of the doors through which he had come. Bertilde curtsied clumsily, stepping on Rafen’s toe. Rafen restrained a grimace.
“Dear uncle and dearest cousi
n,” Bertilde said.
Richard Patrick hissed, and King Albert drew himself up, saying loftily, “You are to address me as ‘Your Majesty’, and his Runiship is to be called ‘My Liege’, at all times.”
Rafen was glad Bertilde had made the mistake before him. He hadn’t realized Richard was a Runi. He tried to remember what made a Runi special. An ability to do incredible kesmal? A right to the Sianian throne? Rafen didn’t envy Richard; King Robert had said his brother Prince Thomas had been murdered because he was a Runi.
Bertilde’s upper lip trembled at the scolding. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she burst out. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Your Majesty. My liege. I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, yes,” King Albert said impatiently, and Robert put a protective hand on his sister’s shoulder.
Richard Patrick sniffed and muttered something to his father.
“His Runiship feels an ague coming on after his travels,” King Albert said impressively. “You must bring smelling salts and other reviving chemicals.”
King Robert looked alarmed and waved the servants away to get the smelling salts.
“This then must be… Rafen.”
King Albert’s voice boomed in the silence of the throne room. Queen Arlene gave Rafen a rare encouraging smile.
“You are from Tarhia, Rafen?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Rafen said, painfully aware of how sweaty he was after his lesson.
“Hmm,” King Albert said. “His Runiship and I are much wearied after our journey. You will have an audience with us tomorrow at eleven o’clock. Do not be late.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Rafen bowed.
Richard Patrick chose that moment to feign a swoon, and several Selsons surged forward to catch him. Etana stood back by the throne and rolled her eyes so only Rafen could see.
*
Eleven o’clock the next morning came around all too quickly.
Uncomfortably poised before an ornately carved desk, Rafen gazed upward at King Robert’s throne, in which King Albert sat. King Robert stood to one end of the table, Etana at his left. It appeared they were required to stand in King Albert’s and Prince Richard Patrick’s presence. Richard slouched in a huge, high-backed armchair at the opposite end of the table from the two Selsons. Having ravenously consumed a tray of sweetmeats that he called ‘revolting’, Richard now had his fingers pressed together, a bored expression on his face while Rafen answered endless questions about Etana’s stay in Tarhia, the cells, and the hygiene. Everything was going smoothly until King Albert glanced at a parchment in his hand, which looked suspiciously like the one Queen Arlene had written on during that disagreeable conversation on the Phoenix Wing.
Rafen (The Fledgling Account Book 1) Page 17
