Lorys was never one for small talk. ‘I wish to discuss Gyl,’ he said.
The topic was so unexpected that she swallowed her wine the wrong way in her surprise and began to cough.
‘Light, woman, what is wrong with you tonight? You are so jumpy.’ He leapt up to help.
‘No, sire, I’m fine. Please…I’m just not used to the wine. I got out of the habit whilst you were abroad,’ she spluttered.
It was a poor attempt at deflection but it stopped him pounding her on the back or, even more terrifying, sitting next to her.
‘Alyssa, this is pure mother’s milk. It is called Morache. You should savour its gentle sweetness. Such an elegant wine, the result of a loving first press from that tiny green grape which grows on the hillsides of Arandon. I chose it especially for you.’
She could not help but feel touched, even amused. ‘Thank you, sire. I like it very much—or at least I will as soon as I swallow it properly.’
‘Call me Lorys, Alyssa. We are not working now.’
Dangerous, she told herself. ‘Um…you said you wanted to talk to me about Gyl, my lord?’
Lorys sighed at her formality. ‘Yes…yes, I did. I have decided that the lad is to be elevated to a new position. Under-Prime will put him just one rank below Prime Herek. He is to be groomed for the top job.’
Alyssa stood. ‘But, sire, that’s ridiculous!’
When the King shot her a tired look over the top of his goblet, she gathered her wits. ‘Oh, my apologies to speak so plainly, my lord, but Gyl has just turned fifteen summers. You cannot expect the soldiers to take him seriously?’
Lorys opened his mouth to respond but Alyssa had begun to pace and continued talking.
‘They will make a mockery of him. The men of the Shield can be cruel on a lad, sire. They consider it their duty to turn him into a man and I have seen them torture him—all good-naturedly of course—but torture nonetheless. He takes it in the very best of spirits and always returns for more but it troubles me. He is the only boy of that age in the garrison…he’s just too young.’
She looked at Lorys imploringly.
‘He is no longer a boy, Alyssa. He is a man. Young, yes, but a man all the same. I was being groomed to run the Kingdom by the time I was twelve. I was crowned King when I was not yet seventeen.’
‘Yes, and no doubt there was a veritable circus of people teaching you how, your majesty. This child was abandoned at twelve. He has learned to fit into this life at the palace but he was not born to it as you were.’
The King sipped his wine and said casually, ‘And how would you know what he was born to?’
That confused Alyssa. ‘Sire, your own good wife, the Queen, found him chained to the palace gates. He was left there by his mother. Is that the action of a high-born woman?’
‘No. But you have no idea of his background.’
‘And you do?’ Her ire was up now. King or no King, she would not see Gyl harmed in any way.
‘As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve made it my business to find out more. Surely you grasped when you met him that he was an educated child. He could read, write, do sums. He has a ready wit and manners most gentle. This is no child of gypsies. Has that never piqued your curiosity?’
It had raided her thoughts for the first few years they had spent together. These days she forced all thoughts of his early life to the back of her mind and locked them away. She wanted nothing to do with them. Gyl was her son. He was hers.
‘I don’t dwell on it, your majesty,’ she answered tersely.
‘Well, let me assure you that Gyl comes from a very good home.’ It was clear Alyssa did not want to listen but Lorys pushed on. ‘His father was not known to him but his mother—a good woman who, incidentally, brought him to the palace gates because she knew she was soon to die—did her best to give him an excellent education. She worked hard for this because his father, so I am told, was of noble birth.’
Dangerous territory now. He took a big swallow of his wine.
‘Who is the father, sire?’
‘There are rumours.’
‘How can you be sure they are true?’
‘Because older members of the palace staff supported them.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as Merkhud. Why are you so tiresome?’ he said, frustrated by her cross-examination.
Alyssa boiled over. ‘Because I’m his mother!’
Now Lorys’s temper flashed. He spoke without thinking. ‘You are not his mother, Alyssa! You are merely his guardian. But I am his…’
He didn’t finish.
Alyssa crumpled. The wine had made her emotional and now the dream which she had woven around herself these past few years had been smashed by Lorys’s harsh words. Of course Gyl was not her son and she was not his mother. Her son was dead. His body lay decaying on the forest floor.
And so was his father: Torkyn Gynt, the Kingdom’s finest physician and its greatest sorcerer. A man who had gone to his death with greater nobility than any of the courtiers who swanned around the palace. He should never have been executed. He would not have been, were it not for this man in front of her. The man who was staring at her with such compassion and regret. The man who had ordered her husband’s barbaric execution.
Alyssa screamed aloud. The horror came flooding back. All the old demons raged forth to haunt her once again. She struck out at the man responsible for it all. Punching and slapping, she felt each blow land on his flesh and she hated him for not stopping her. Instead, he stood there sadly and took her punishment.
Finally her rage calmed and she slid to the floor. Her breath came in ragged starts and she could hear that Lorys too was breathing deeply. Had she made a great deal of noise? She could not hear running in the hallways or knocking at the door. Only the dog seemed to have responded; he was taking a greater than usual interest in her, licking at the tears on her face.
‘Go on with you, Drake,’ she heard the King say.
The hound loped off and she felt the King’s strong hands beneath her arms as he lifted her up to face him. His face was bleeding from a scratch on one cheek and the other cheekbone looked puffy. His shirt was ripped, revealing even more of the body she longed to touch. Alyssa felt sick.
‘You should box for one of the Shield teams,’ Lorys said.
At that she began to cry. What a hopeless, horrible situation.
‘Remind me not to try again to make you laugh with my scintillating wit.’
‘Sire, you are wounded,’ she said, staring through her tears at his face.
‘Just a scratch and deserved. I am sorry, Alyssa. Truly, deeply sorry. I had no right to throw that in your face. You are a wonderful mother to Gyl and he is a lucky boy to have you in his life.’
They were standing too close. He took her hand and held it against his bare chest. Alyssa could feel her own heart banging loudly, or was it his heartbeat she could feel against her palm? She did not know but she did not want it to end. She wanted to throw her whole self against his naked chest and cry her tears. Cry for Gyl and for Tor, for Saxon and Cloot, for the tragic loss of Nyria and for her own doomed love for the King.
‘Will you forgive me?’ he said tenderly.
‘Only if you will let me see to that wound.’
He nodded.
Alyssa reluctantly pulled away from his hold and cleaned up her face with her kerchief, which she moistened in some water from the jug. Then she called to the page, who, mercifully, was asleep outside and had missed the noise. Thankfully the King refused to have his chambers guarded or they would have had ten men banging on the doors by now.
‘Edwyd, fetch my herbals basket from my chambers. Gyl will show you. Hurry, lad. After you’ve returned you may leave for your night’s rest.’
The page scurried off. Inside once again, she politely asked the King to sit down and poured him another goblet of wine. She could feel his eyes following her every move but she refused to look at him.
Alyssa was grateful tha
t Edwyd returned quickly with her basket. Closing the door on him, she asked Lorys to lean his head back so she could inspect the wound. She had to sit next to him to clean it with a mixture of washes she had made herself only a few days earlier. They were so fresh and stringent that they made him wince but she knew their application would ensure no infection occurred there. Another trick learned from Sorrel: infection kills, so kill it first.
‘I’m sorry to hurt you more, sire.’
Lorys sighed. ‘Looking at you, having you so close and being unable to tell you how my heart longs for you hurts much, much more.’
Alyssa stopped her ministrations. Their faces were just inches apart.
‘My lord, you must not speak so,’ she whispered.
The King sat up and took her hands in his. ‘But I must, Alyssa. Or I will go mad from the pain. I love you. I have loved you since the day I saw you in the throne room, wan and filled with despair. You were beautiful in your dignity at the execution of Gynt and though I cannot heal that wound for you, I can beg your forgiveness.
‘I could have stayed the execution but I was already too enamoured of you. Too jealous of him for having felt your body beneath his. I wanted no man to have you if I could not. I have been demented these years at having you near. It takes all my courage sometimes to stop myself from reaching out and stroking your hair as we work—’
‘My lord, please. The Queen’s ashes are still warm,’ Alyssa cried.
‘Hush, Alyssa. The Queen knew.’
From the table next to him, he lifted a piece of parchment. Alyssa could see immediately that it was inscribed with the Queen’s hand.
He continued as he unrolled it fully. ‘She wrote this several days before her death; the day we returned from the royal tour. In it she thanks me,’ he barked a sad laugh, ‘for being so attentive and loving to her during the Kingdom-wide visit.
‘I will not read it all to you, but she admits to knowing how unhappy my nights were during that time and further suggests that I was yearning for something. She writes that I was yearning for the company of Alyssandra Qyn. She says that I am not to feel badly because of this. She blesses any relationship that we may have after her death, which she seemed to know was close.’
He paused. It was upsetting for him to read it again, though Alyssa could see the parchment had already been fingered and read many times. She passed him the wine and he drank the rest of his goblet.
‘I must finish this. She hopes that I will consider making you my Queen for she believes that you and I will form the perfect union for a Kingdom that is facing trouble. I do not know what she means by that, but on the morning of our ride—the day she died—she told me that she had dreamed of a woman who told her that Tallinor would face much danger in years to come and it would need strength at its helm to navigate those challenging times. According to Nyria, the woman told her that you are critical to the Kingdom and that Gyl must be Prime.’
‘Light, Lorys! And you believe all this?’ Alyssa exclaimed, feeling her stomach clench as she recognised the intrusion of Lys once more into their lives.
‘I believe that you and I are meant to be together. I believe that Nyria continued unto death the fine and noble character she possessed in life; she has blessed our union and I will love her more than ever for that generosity. I believe that Gyl should be groomed for Prime for many reasons and I believe that our army should prepare itself for less peaceful times. Old man Merkhud used to warn me of it but I never really paid enough attention to our defence. We have never been at war during my reign. The modern Tallinese know only peace and prosperity. But Merkhud was a strange, all-knowing old fellow and this dream of Nyria’s…this warning—well, I have never taken any other of her suggestions lightly so this too will be heeded. Now, tell me you love me too, Alyssa. Tell me I am not imagining it.’ His words were tumbling upon each other as he searched her face for his answer.
Alyssa paused, forcing herself to think. But she was too far into her love for him.
‘I have tried not to, my lord. All I wanted was to hate you. But I have failed. I adore you, Lorys. I want you with all my heart, although I feel like a traitor to Nyria.’
His eyes looked misty. ‘Be my Queen. Stand beside me and rule.’
Alyssa took a deep breath; she saw Tor’s face and bade it farewell as she said the words the King ached to hear. ‘I shall be your Queen, my lord, and I will love you for ever.’
He reached for her and pulled her close. They kissed, long and sweetly. All sense of time fled; all sense of the palace around them disappeared. They were one. Their love was sealed.
When they parted, she settled her head against his chest. The sensation of his skin against her cheek made her feel like she was floating. She never wanted this euphoria to end. Then she remembered the archalyt. She sat upright, startled.
‘What is it?’ Lorys asked, stroking the hair he had longed to touch for so many years.
‘I am still Untouchable. I am not permitted to have a lover, let alone take a husband, even though he may be King. You have had people murdered for less, my lord.’
‘Nyria thought of everything, my love. She has been lobbying me for years about the status of Untouchables. I was forced to admit to her that since we disbanded the Inquisitors, the Tallinese people have been much happier. I realised we have been clinging to an ancient law which, in its time, was set for the good of all, but Goth and his band had turned it into a means of persecuting anyone they saw fit.
‘As for the Untouchables, it is much the same thing. We have promoted the fear that every sentient woman will give birth to a demon who will destroy us. It is an archaic belief. Legend has it that centuries ago a madman, a sentient, nearly destroyed the Land. But I think we are all wiser now and we must grow and go forward, not cling to the past and its myths.’
Alyssa welcomed Lorys’s words, but nevertheless felt chilled at his reference to Orlac, whom, she knew from Nanak’s writings, would return one day. He was no legend. He did intend to destroy Tallinor. But she did not want to think on that now.
‘So, what is your plan for the Academie and the Untouchables?’
‘Well, the Academie is very important. It must continue its work and will remain as a haven for young women. However, they will not run there because of persecution. They will choose to enrol there because they are gifted and can contribute something special to our Kingdom.’
‘And the archalyt?’
‘It will no longer be necessary. I realise that those of you who are already marked will never be able to remove it, but no sentient woman will ever be marked in this way again. And those who do carry the mark will be free to live normal lives. We owe you a debt.’
‘Oh, Lorys!’ Alyssa hugged him. ‘This is what your reign will be remembered for. You are releasing those who have been enslaved for too long.’
He was enjoying her praise. ‘And as for their status, the Untouchables will be permitted to take husbands, although we will still keep a register of their children. Old habits die hard.’
‘I am so proud of you. Breaking down these barriers will make you sovereign of an even stronger Kingdom. Embrace the gifted and encourage their talents and it will repay itself, Lorys, I know it.’
They kissed again, more deeply this time, neither wanting to part from the other’s lips.
When they finally did part, Alyssa realised she was exhausted. She yawned. ‘I must go.’
‘Can’t you stay?’
‘No,’ she said grinning. ‘Not until we are married.’
‘Meet me for a kiss at breakfast time then.’
‘Do you feel guilt over this?’ she asked, pulling away from his embrace.
‘I have suffered guilt for years over my feelings for you, but I have never stopped loving Nyria even though I love you so much. No, Nyria has blessed us in this letter; she wanted us to be together after her death and so I feel only joy in this, and relief that I knew her and that she was my Queen for as long as she was.’
‘That means no holding of hands or looking at me dewy-eyed, Lorys. We still have to work together as King and secretary for a few moons yet.’ She wagged her finger at him.
‘I promise,’ he said, touching his heart. Her spot.
‘Before I go, please tell me what you know of Gyl—I beg you.’
Lorys looked deeply into her eyes and felt safe. With Alyssa, soon to be his Queen, no secrets were necessary.
‘He is my son. He is the heir to Tallinor.’
10
Reunion in a Brothel
When Tor arrived at Caradoon neither Goth and Xantia nor Janus Quist were still in town. He found lodgings at a run-down inn. His stuffy room was dirty and contained nothing more than a pallet and rough sheets still unchanged from the previous guest. Still, it gave him the anonymity he needed. He had entered town wearing a glamour to avoid being recognised, but having established that Goth had seemingly fled, he was able to rid himself of the disguise. No one knew of Goth’s whereabouts; or if they did, they certainly were not telling a stranger.
So be it. Goth was no longer his first priority; that enemy would have to wait. Tor hoped that Saxon had returned immediately to Tal to ensure Alyssa’s safety. He could count on Saxon. For now, Cloot had to be found. Tor needed to track down Janus Quist and he knew he would have to be very careful in how he approached his questioning. The Caradoons were suspicious by nature, mistrustful of everyone; they trusted southerners even less, particularly those from the capital.
Tor decided that although the best and perhaps quickest source of information would be the docks, his chances would probably be better in the local whorehouse. Grease a few palms, ply a few drinks, play up to a woman’s charms and who knew what could be learned.
Quist was certainly not a good-looking man but there was a dignity about him. The mere fact that he had showed his face was testimony to a sense of fairness, not to mention sparing Saxon’s life. Yes, Quist definitely had a certain charisma, a powerful one. And where there was power, there were women. Tor had no doubt that Quist would avail himself of the ladies of the town each time he returned from a prosperous journey and so he made his way to the brothel.
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