Beneath Ceaseless Skies #153

by Michael Haynes

  He bows his head but does not smile. They know, then, not only who has died but who led the invading army. I try to convey my sympathy with a look, but my face is bruised and numbed and I doubt my expression is reassuring.

  The pain has receded for now, and though I know it will return, its power over me has faded. My mother’s death, though, is still a fresh wound, and I feel helpless and aching with my grief; heavy, as though exhaustion and sorrow have pinned me to the rug on which I lie.

  The future is no comfort. As far as I cast my mind forward, my mother is still gone.

  * * *

  Months pass as I heal enough to return to sword practice, sparring with Riven; enough to receive visits from a few trusted soldiers. The usurper who was once my sister has forbidden them from congregating, but they come alone or in pairs to hear me speak; to swear their service.

  It is the most I have spoken with those outside the fortress. Samil has grown since he courted my sister, and I see it in small ways. He still shares his water ration with children and wounded soldiers, but he talks back to me now. I remember when he was frightened of my mother, but though he addresses me as his prince, he is not shy of me.

  Which is particularly annoying sometimes, as I try to push myself beyond my slowly healing abilities.

  “You didn’t eat any breakfast,” Samil calls as I am halfway out the door. “And barely any supper. That means no sparring. You’re still healing, you need your strength.” I freeze guiltily, sword in hand, and see him watching me a little sardonically. He works primarily healing animals, but since my sister left him he has become a doctor’s apprentice, and he is familiar with restless patients.

  “I had plenty of water,” I tell him. “And plenty of rest.”

  He makes a scolding sound as Riven comes in. We spar only in the evenings, tucked behind their small house. Though it is far from the fortress, she always goes out first to be sure no one is watching.

  “Is something wrong?” she asks me, and I scowl.

  “Ask your husband,” I say, more childishly resentful than I would like, and she clearly recognizes the exasperation on Samil’s face, a healer with an unruly patient. She stifles a laugh, and quickly schools her expression into something more befitting a soldier addressing her prince.

  “Ah, my lady,” she says, trying to sound apologetic and mostly sounding entertained. “You would not expect me to send you into danger undefended? So you cannot expect my husband to defy his own instincts. Still,” she adds, giving him a stern look. “I hope you recall exactly who your patient is.”

  “If she would just eat a little bread,” he says testily and turns back to me. “Truly, my lady, you know you cannot afford to weaken.”

  “I bow to your medical authority,” I tell him, with exaggerated weariness. I sink back onto the couch and wave an imperious hand. “You may bring me more bread and fish,” He rolls his eyes but goes to obey, as Riven laughs in the corner. I have not seen her laugh since that day by the stalls, I realize, and am pleased to have caused it. I watch her fetching bread as Samil roasts a piece of fish, and they are easy now, laughing together, teasing. It is a relief to see that though I have brought difficulties with me, I have not ruined this for them.

  * * *

  As the summer rains pass, the rivers briefly widening to make irrigation easier, it comes time to harvest the trees and the small patches of irrigated land, and talk of war fades beside the talk of farming.

  “My family has less than half of our usual nypa crop,” Riven tells me. “And my cousin’s farm lost their oldest mesquite trees to blight.” She holds up a shriveled pod, twisted and black with dry rot. I force myself not to lean away from the musty, bitter smell of it.

  “The land knows,” Samil says. It is old superstition, for the townsfolk as well as for my parents. Murder a prince, of however small a city, and the land itself rejects you.

  Even I don’t know whether it is true. I have no cause and effect in my visions of the future; I never know the why. I do know that the crops will do better in the next few years, and the flourishing mesquite trees will draw more animals to the city to be eaten. I know that over the next few decades, irrigation will improve, and the town will grow so that I am no longer needed, and I will hand over the reins to elected officials and begin my wandering.

  I do not know, though, whether the blight has anything to do with the usurper’s treachery or whether the crops improve because of my own rule. I only know that the people believe in the old superstition, and that means I can use it.

  More soldiers come to visit the house now, the dying trees pushing the more reluctant into action. They are loyal and they are angry, but they are also frightened.

  They might have served their whole lives without warfare, and now sister fights sister and they are caught in between, and the usurper’s guards are strong and well-armed and prepared to do battle.

  I gaze at these soldiers when they come and thank them for their loyalty; praise their honor. I promise them victory, not with rousing speeches but with certainty.

  Sometimes as they leave I hear them speaking to each other, whispering that I should always have been my mother’s heir. Her power came to me, they say; they can hear the truth in my voice. Their devotion grows stronger, and their hope rises, and I have my army by the time the trees have grown bare with winter.

  * * *

  The usurper has not been as cautious of late. Her guards are from far away, and many have returned to their homes; the others have grown unwary in the quiet after the uprising. Meanwhile my people bow and scrape and stay quiet, and I can see, when she stands above the town to speak to the people, that she believes in their loyalty. She imagines herself the rightful prince, speaking from the prince’s balcony where my mother once stood.

  “And soon you will have a new lord,” she says. “To join me in my reign. My consort is sailing even now across the sea. His ship lands in three days, and there will be a public feast in celebration.” She makes the announcement proudly, as if the people will be glad to have a foreign lord. They murmur politely, exchanging dark looks, and report back to me when night falls.

  “She will expect us to attack when his ship comes in,” I tell Riven. With no one to unify my people, they might well have done so –seized a moment when the fewest soldiers could do the most damage. But we have been waiting and planning, and we have enough troops to take the fortress if her guards are unwary. “If we strike tomorrow instead, she will not see it coming.”

  “Tomorrow night?” Riven asks, ready to spread the word, and I shake my head.

  “The usurper attacked in the night, as if the darkness could cover her transgression.” I have grown used to speaking as a prince to an audience, and I choose my words deliberately. “We will enter in the light of day. We will march in while she is making speeches to the people. Her guards will be with her, the fortress halls unguarded. We will walk in through the southern gate. It will not be hard.”

  Riven hesitates. Samil says, out of sight in my blind spot, “I mean no disrespect, my lady, but there is no southern entrance to the fortress.”

  I turn so I can see them both at once. “I know the fortress as no one else does.” This is true—I have seen the southern entrance since I was a child, seen myself entering at it. It took me all the years Lydie was gone at school to find it, but I am sure of its place now. “The door is just wide enough to enter three abreast. I will lead our soldiers in and take them unaware.”

  Riven says, “We will be honored to follow,” but Samil does not look convinced.

  “It will not be hard,” he says, echoing me. “Does that mean none shall die? That none shall be wounded? Over and done within an hour, and a feast to celebrate after? You cannot promise us this.”

  I have known Samil since I was a child, and he and Riven saved my life, so I do him the courtesy of taking a moment to see the true death count. “We lose one man,” I tell him, and pretend I do not see his disbelief. “Three more are wounded
in battle, one badly. Riven is not among them,” I add, and I can see the relief in his face, his desperate need to believe.

  “I would be honored to die for you,” Riven tells me fiercely, and I realize she is embarrassed by our concern.

  I smile at her; turn so that she has all my eye’s attention. “I make no promise that I will keep you safe—I will rely on you in battle as if you are my own right arm.” To be a prince’s right arm is neither safe nor comfortable. “But I am glad that you are to survive, for I will still need your help when the fighting is done and the usurper has fallen.”

  She bows to me, and I touch her palm lightly in acceptance. “Let the others know,” I tell her. “We gather tomorrow an hour before the usurper’s speech, behind the fortress. We will retake it and then, indeed, there will be a feast of gratitude, and funerals for the fallen on both sides, and next year the crops will flourish.”

  Riven and Samil bow to me and leave, to spread the word among the other soldiers. I am left alone to sit and watch the future. I look upon the coming battle, beyond it to my sister’s death, and sharpen my sword.

  * * *

  We take the fortress.

  It is almost uneventful, to me; I have seen it so many times. I open the door and we enter, and together we strike down all those in our path. When we reach the balcony, the guards are outnumbered, and we take them easily. The usurper comes in to face us herself. When she sees me, she hesitates, surprised that I am alive. The look on her face is familiar from our sparring, running, our many games of chess, the old fierce determination not to lose. Still she is slow to draw her sword.

  Then she sees my soldiers and knows it is hopeless, her expression going blank, and she surrenders with rigid grace. We walk out onto the balcony with her in chains. She kneels at my feet and I raise my sword and the crowds below us cheer. I take the usurper’s crown and hand it to Riven, bow my head for her to crown me. When the crowds have finished cheering, my soldiers take the usurper and her remaining guards down to the dungeons.

  Riven smiles cautiously at me. “You are prince now, Your Highness,” she says, and I force myself to smile back.

  “You have all served me well today,” I say. “I am honored to have your loyalty.”

  She bows. “What more can we do in your service, Highness?”

  “The usurper had planned a feast,” I say, and think through my words carefully. This is the moment that will define my rule for those watching—Riven, her fellow soldiers, the townspeople. “Surely she stockpiled food for it, probably taken from the people as part of the monthly taxes. The traitor was owed no tax; it is only proper that the food be returned to the people in celebration.”

  “I will see to it,” Riven says, and begins to give orders, and I leave it in her capable hands and head to my rooms to find something more regal to wear.

  I have seen these moments a thousand times. I always expected to feel—something. Some triumph, some joy, some vindication in vengeance against the traitor who killed my mother. But all I feel is worn, grieving; my parents dead and soon my sister as well, leaving me alone with a lost eye and a well-defended fortress.

  The first day is spent in celebrations and mourning. My people approach me to offer fealty and then turn their attention to the food, and one another. I stand apart, watching, thinking of the usurper, trapped in the dark prison cell where she belongs.

  I return to the palace when the feasting is over. My chambers were untouched when I entered them, as if my mother had died only yesterday. I visit them briefly now, to ensure that I look every inch the prince and as little as possible the wounded younger sister.

  Then I walk down the stairs to the dungeons.

  * * *

  The usurper’s captured guards watch me with wary eyes as I pass their cells. I ignore them; they will face my judgment, but not today. Today I am here only to visit their leader.

  She sits in her cell with stiff posture and no expression. As I come within sight of her she glances swiftly toward me and then just as quickly away. I reach her cell, stand directly before her and wait, tall and proud, for her to speak, to defend herself, to finally give me a reason.

  I know she will not. She never has before. We have waited here in silence a thousand times, and I have left her here to her fate, and I never hear about her fever until she is already dead. It feels as though I have years, but I know it must be less, or how can I miss it; how can I not know? My future will be built, as my past has been, on silence, on the emptiness of never knowing why.

  I tried to change a thief’s future, and my mother’s, and there is no reason to believe this time will be any different. But I have waited so long for an answer, not the minutes I have been standing here, but a whole lifetime. I still ache from the battle, and even my good eye feels sore and stinging and dry, and my mother is dead, and I am bitterly sick of it all.

  “You couldn’t wait?” I ask her, my voice cracking out of me, harsh and pained, and she looks up at me startled, as though she had not imagined I would speak. Even I am startled—I have never spoken before.

  “You were her heir,” I say. I had not meant to say anything, but I have years of silence pressing on my lips and I cannot stop the questions spilling out. “Now instead of centuries you had only a few months—did you really think you would be allowed to keep the throne? Did you never listen to the stories? The land rejects every usurper, and so do the people. You were mother’s heir, and you murdered her, as you tried to kill me, and for what?”

  She stares at me, and for a bleak, horrified second I know I will never find out, that she will never tell me. Speaking has changed nothing, and I am embarrassed to have let myself hope for an answer, even for a moment.

  Then, to my surprise, she breaks her silence.

  “She had centuries to rule,” she says, and where my voice was hoarse and broken, hers remains clear and smooth and familiar. “As for you—if you had not challenged me, if I had thought you could accept me as your prince, I would have let you live.”

  “You did, however unintentionally,” I tell her bitterly. “I survived.”

  She says, “Obviously,” with scorn and no relief.

  I touch the patch that covers my ruined eye, and her gaze flicks to it, then away, the first sign of guilt she has shown. It is more than I ever expected, and I gain some control over my anger.

  “Why now?” I ask her. “Even if you could not wait centuries—what made this so urgent?”

  She does not answer.

  “You do not think you owe me this much?” I ask her. “A few answers in return for my mother’s murder?”

  She stares at me for a long second, then finally shakes her head, and for a moment I see the exasperation of a pedantic sister in place of an enemy’s hate.

  “What answer can I give you?” she asks me, and her tone is as much lecturing as bitter. “If I say that, unlike our mother, I wished to live with my mortal husband at my side, and not to outlive him—would that be enough?” I see her mouth twist as soon as she says it, and she hurries on to distract me from the fact that he is on his way, as if I might forget. Perhaps she worries that if she seems fond of him it will give me more reason to kill him.

  She continues, faster now, more forcefully, as if willing me to understand. “What if I say that I doubted my own immortality? There is no way of knowing that you and I will live even a tenth so long as our mother—we might well die long before she would relinquish her crown. What if I say she was a tyrant, and I only intended to liberate our people? She certainly kept us under control—no job suitable but to someday become prince, and that day never in sight.”

  She sounds bitter, desperate, and I remember her fighting with our mother, her desperation to finally leave home and no longer be a child.

  “If I say I had a plan, if I say I was desperate, if I say I never meant to kill her at all—Mandeva, you want some justification so you can forgive me, or for me to say something so monstrous that your hatred can be simple. But there i
s no justification that will be enough for you, and there is no motivation that is worse than the crimes I have already committed. So what does why matter?”

  Her question hits me like a blow. It’s true: I wanted so desperately to have some reason good enough that I could have her back, that she could still be the sister who explained my feelings and joked with me and always wanted to play chess. Her explanations are even plausible. She has always been impatient, defiant; always wanted to prove her own worth.

  But what she says is true. There may be traces of the Lydie I remember left, but though I see enough to make me ache, it isn’t enough.

  “You’re right. I cannot forgive you,” I tell her. She inclines her head in acceptance, calm as if she had already known, her bitterness and her affection both gone behind a look as blank as a mask.

  I turn away from her and walk down the row of cells, back straight, feeling miserable and young and not at all like a prince. I have finally gotten my answer—and another glimpse of my pedantic sister, a hint of all the love and fear and anger behind her indifference—and it still is not enough. I thought, in the moment that I finally spoke, that I had somehow changed something,, that I had finally broken the pattern. Yet even this small change is meaningless. I could not save my mother and I could not save my eye and I cannot save Lydie, who has chosen her path and will die on it.

  As I approach the dungeon stairs, though, the walls fade under an overlay of images, the future echoing back, spilling out before me; this prison fading under the next time I come down, and the next.

  Tomorrow, instead of sending my guards, I will go personally to meet her husband at the docks and offer him a choice, and, to my surprise and hers, he will choose to join her in prison. She has taught him chess, and in a year I will unbend enough to bring them a chessboard, and in two years I will even join them for a game, and in three or four or five years, when my sister grows ill, I will know and I will bring Riven and Samil down with fresh water and medicine. By then Riven will be the captain of my guard, and Samil one of my councilors, but they will tend the traitor personally because they are the only ones I trust with my sister’s health. Not long after that, my sister will even be allowed out of the dungeons for more than a few hours at a time.