“Fine.” Damiano followed Stevens to the indicated door. Stevens took out a key ring and unlocked it, pushing it open before reaching inside to flip on a light. Damiano stepped inside the musty stale room which held a small desk, a desk chair, and a blotter. There was a phone and no window. Two straight-backed chairs sat in front of the desk. There was nothing on the walls or stone floor. The room was stark and cold so Damiano figured this must be the previous primero’s office.
“This will be your office, sir.” Stevens followed him in and shut the solid wooden door as Damiano stepped behind the desk, taking the chair. Stevens stood in front of the desk.
“Sit.” Damiano waved at the chairs.
“Thank you, sir.” Stevens sat down stiffly, looking across the desk at him.
“Did you serve Pasha Raab before King Fain?”
“Yes, sir. I did.”
“So, you were there when Pasha Raab’s paladin primero betrayed him?”
Stevens frowned and shook his head. “Sir, I was there but I was not involved in his betrayal. Many of us were loyal to the king and we fought to save him. We had no idea Primero Dariush was going to do what he did and by the time we figured it out, it was too late. He let a rogue mob of mercenaries into the palace under the cloak of darkness. They outnumbered Pasha Raab’s loyal paladin. We fought hard but the sheer numbers of Dariush’s rogue warriors were overwhelming. I was among those whom he and his brigands tried to murder after Pasha Raab was taken prisoner.”
“Why were you not immediately put to death by paladin loyal to Dariush?”
“When Pasha Raab was taken to the pit and murdered by Primero Dariush, several of his trustworthy paladin were slaughtered trying to save him. I was gravely injured during the fracas and thought to be dead. I was taken to a pit and dumped into it along with many of my brothers. Dariush’s rogues didn’t have any intention of giving us a pyre because we’d served Pasha Raab loyally. Many of my brothers died at the hands of the traitors.”
Damiano watched the man’s hands ball into fists where they rested on his knees. He looked up as he remembered and relayed what had happened to him. Damiano could scent no lie coming from him in the confined space of the small room.
“Dariush was eventually replaced by Johansen. Tell me how that happened and what became of Primero Dariush.”
Stevens sighed. “This part I have only heard secondhand because I was half-dead, lying in the mass grave with my brothers. Apparently, after Dariush tried to ascend the throne without royal blood as was his intent, King Fain, a distant cousin to Pasha Raab, was located. He sent Primero Johansen with an army of paladin to kill Dariush and all of the rogues who’d participated in Pasha Raab’s overthrow.”
“I see. And you? How did you recover?” Damiano looked Stevens up and down. The paladin appeared to be strong and healthy.
“Some of the palace servants pulled me and a few other survivors from the grave. I was delirious with fever but Cook and one of the other staff members cared for me until I could return to service. By that time, Dariush and his army of killers had been destroyed and King Fain was on the throne with Paladin Primero Johansen by his side. They welcomed me back after I’d healed.”
“I see. Thank you for explaining all of that. Now, to some final unanswered questions I have. Pasha Raab. Tell me what happened to his body. Is it true that he wasn’t given a pyre ceremony?” Damiano had never heard the whole story from an eyewitness to Pasha Raab’s betrayal and he wanted to gauge the truth of Stevens’s word.
“No, sir. He was not.” His voice was unsteady, shaking with emotion.
“Go on,” Damiano encouraged.
“From what I understand, Pasha Raab was taken to the pit and slaughtered by Dariush. Then, his body was thrown into a pit with the others. From what I can determine, he is buried in the same mass grave from where I was rescued. I was told that they searched the pit for him but were unsuccessful in finding his body. Rumors flew around that some of the cats assigned to the burial pit pulled his body free of it and gave him a secret pyre so that he would be honored.” Stevens shook his head. “I’m not sure that happened but I take comfort in that it might have.”
“Go on,” Damiano encouraged.
“After I was pulled from the pit along with only a few others, I was told that Dariush’s rogue mercenaries came and covered it with dirt. They didn’t even burn the bodies.” A single tear slipped down the captain’s face. “If my king truly was not honored with a pyre after death, his spirit was not set free.”
Damiano watched Stevens drop his face, twisting his hands in his lap. It made him furious just to hear the account of what had happened to Pasha Raab. He could see that Stevens was angry that he’d had no way of preventing what happened to their monarch. By all accounts, Pasha Raab had been a wise and fair king. His people loved him but he was obviously way too trusting of those close to him and his queen.
“How did Queen Sancerre get away? Do you know, Stevens?”
Stevens glanced up and reached to swipe at his eyes. He shook his head. “Not from firsthand knowledge. I’ve only heard accounts like others.”
“Go on. Tell me what you heard,” Damiano said.
“Yes, sir. It was said that one of the stablemen got her out of the palace through an underground tunnel no one but a few knew about. She was an avid horsewoman and long before the overthrow of Pasha Raab, she and the king used the tunnels to get out for nighttime rides. Queen Sancerre liked the freedom of riding without the necessary retinue and the king loved to indulge her. They would ask the stable boy to meet them at the end of a secret tunnel which had an opening about a mile from the palace. The lad would take their mounts and meet them there when they wanted to ride alone at night.
“That night, as the palace was overrun, it is said that the stableman took their horses to the tunnel with the hope that they would be able to escape. As it turned out, the queen did come out of the tunnel but she was alone. From there, she rode her horse to freedom, eluding her would-be killers, and eventually making her way through the San Gabriel mountains. She traveled to Greece where she died of influenza, though some say it was from heartbreak. Either way, it was a tragic end to the House of Raab.”
“Yes, it was,” Damiano said. “Now, tell me about Primero Johansen. No one has explained his death to me.” He watched as Stevens’s eyes widened briefly before he leaned forward. When he lowered his voice, Damiano had to lean toward him.
“He didn’t show up for mess one morning three months ago. I went to check on him and he was still in his bed. He was dead, sir.”
“Dead? By what manner?”
“The doctor said it was probably a heart attack, sir,” Stevens said. “He had his meal brought to him in his room and then was found dead the next morning. He’d always been a healthy cat, sir.”
“How old was he?” Damiano was instantly suspicious. Large cats, especially paladin, were incredibly healthy creatures. They were bred to be. For one to die of a heart attack was extremely unusual. In fact, Damiano had never heard of it happening before.
“He was thirty-seven, sir.”
Damiano felt his eyebrows climb. For a cat of that age to die of a heart attack, he would had to have had some sort of undiagnosed heart defect. Anything other than that would have prevented him from serving in the military, much less as Paladin Primero. The medical tests prior to being accepted into service were rigorous. That led Damiano to believe that the man had not died of natural causes, especially a man strong enough to take the palace back from Dariush and his band of rogue paladin.
“Was it unusual for him to take his meals by himself?” Damiano asked.
“No, sir. He preferred it.” Stevens glanced down and stared at his clasped hands before looking up again. “Some of us believed he thought himself above his station, sir.”
“Okay, thank you for your candid answers, Stevens.”
“Of course, sir,” Stevens replied, seeming to relax.
“I will need to see th
e autopsy report and I need to speak to the doctor.”
Stevens squirmed in his chair. “There was no autopsy, sir. The doctor pronounced that Primero Johansen had died of a heart attack and then his body was sent to the mortuary for preparations before the pyre ceremony.”
Damiano frowned deeply. “Where is this doctor?” he said, resting both hands on the desk between them as he leaned forward.
“He disappeared just two weeks ago, sir.”
Damiano growled and Stevens sat back. “What?” he thundered. The intrigue in the palace seemed to be never-ending.
“He vanished, sir. Theo was the last to see him but he…”
“Have this Theo person brought to me. I wish to speak to him,” Damiano said, cutting him off. He realized his temper was short but he really didn’t care. Something strange had gone on here. He suspected the primero had not died from a heart attack but without the doctor to question, he had to look at others who might give him the truth.
“Theo doesn’t speak often, sir,” Stevens said.
“What do you mean he doesn’t speak?” Damiano shouted. “Bring him to me. He’ll speak to me or he’ll be thrown in a dungeon until he does.”
“But, sir, he’s just…”
“Bring him to me, Stevens!”
“Yes, Primero. Right away.” Stevens shot out of his chair and disappeared out of the door. He shouted at one of the others and Damiano waited impatiently. Whoever this paladin was, he would get the man to speak.
He was shocked when Stevens returned with a small boy, holding him by the collar as the boy fought with all his might to get away. Stevens slammed the door behind him and then grunted when the boy’s boot connected with his shin. “Stop struggling, you little shit.”
Damiano stood up as Stevens dragged the boy into the room. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old but he looked younger because he was so small. When the boy saw how tall Damiano was, he stopped struggling and turned his blue-eyed gaze upward until he could look into his face. The moment their eyes met, the boy—Theo, Damiano thought he was called—stopped struggling. He stared at Damiano and Damiano stared back, trapped by the boy’s gaze.
There was something otherworldly about the way he looked at him. The more he stared into the boy’s blue eyes, the more he was mesmerized. His eyes were very odd. Blue eyes weren’t typical in large cat shifters so when Damiano saw a cat with them they were striking and he always stopped to stare. The green glow of an askari suddenly appeared around the boy’s irises and then to Damiano’s complete shock, the green turned to a bright burning orange. The glow seemed to radiate out of the boy’s face, almost like a light that drew him in, trapping him in it. Damiano realized there was no way he could possibly turn away, even if he’d wanted to.
“Sit down,” Stevens said, guiding the young boy to sit in one of the hard, wooden chairs in front of Damiano’s desk.
Damiano sat back down and leaned forward, twining his fingers as he lay his arms on the desk in front of him. He still couldn’t look away. Whoever this boy was, he was neither askari nor paladin. He was something magical but not like any shifter he’d ever seen. Who are you, Theo? The boy suddenly grinned.
“I am your Seer, Primero. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Damiano blinked and sat back suddenly, feeling an almost electric shock go through him. He’d been watching the boy’s face. His lips weren’t moving but Damiano could clearly hear what he was saying. This boy is a telepath.
“Yes, I am. I am your Seer, your harbinger, your augur…”
Damiano swallowed hard. The boy read his thoughts and answered the questions in his head as clearly as if he’d answered out loud.
“We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Primero, did you have some questions for this urchin, sir?” Stevens’s terse voice cut into the telepathic conversation he and Theo had been having.
Damiano turned to look at the paladin. Irritation was clearly written all over his features. Damiano blew out a breath and stood up, walking around the desk to stand close to his second in command. He bent his head and spoke quietly.
“Stevens, it is possible the boy has been too shy to speak while confronted with anger. Please leave me to ask him some questions,” Damiano said, trying to keep his voice calm. When he finished, he stepped back and met Stevens’s confused gaze.
“Yes, Primero. I’ll be…” He glanced at the door and hooked a thumb at it. “I’ll just be outside.” He bowed his head and then turned, letting himself out and closing the door behind him.
Damiano walked back to the desk but rather than sitting behind it, he took the other chair beside Theo. The amused expression on the boy’s face was only slightly disconcerting.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the boy repeated.
The words didn’t echo in the small room and Damiano realized he was still communicating telepathically with him. He was a strange child with the brightly-glowing orange circles around his irises. Damiano had read of these creatures but he hadn’t thought them real until meeting one. He wondered whether Stevens had seen the glow around his eyes.
“He only sees what I want him to see. No, he knows me only as a petulant child, which I most definitely am not.”
“Why? Why hide your power and what you are from him? He and the others should know that you can communicate, that you can see the future. You can see the future, can you not?”
Damiano had heard that Seers could divine the past through pictures, not through an oftentimes warped history coming from the recall of someone who’d written down what he wanted people to remember. And that wasn’t where their power ended. Seers could also see the future. Since the mythological magical creatures were only a legend, he wasn’t so sure he was looking at one now. If the boy was truly a Seer, he could be very helpful in more ways than Dami could count.
“You still don’t see what is right in front of you. You must open your mind. Expand your thoughts. Believe that there are creatures you cannot logically explain. I have come to help you. We’ve been waiting a very long time.”
The thoughts appeared in Damiano’s mind as if he’d heard them spoken aloud. Not only that, the creature in front of him was much older than he appeared. Of that he was certain.
“Who has been waiting? You keep saying we’ve been waiting. Tell me, Theo. Who’s been waiting for me?”
He watched a sad smile cross the boy’s face as his orange eyes glowed so brightly, Damiano was momentarily forced to close his eyes.
“Damiano Satriale, Paladin Primero, Pasha Raab has been waiting a long time for you.”
Chapter Ten
“Y ou are not to let that nosy bastard find anything. Is that clear?”
“Yes, but he is very persistent and I don’t really know how to stop him from questioning the paladin and askari out here. Eventually someone will say something.”
“It’s your job to see to it that they don’t! Is that clear?”
“Yes, but the king has given his permission for the paladin to be here. How am I to stop him? He has the ear of the primero.”
“And you know whom I have the ear of. That should make you want to crap yourself.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Because I really don’t care what you do. If the king’s fun is cut short by a simpleton, you’ll find yourself in the pit. I will not protect you.”
“I understand completely.”
“Good. Stop him or divert him. Destroy whatever evidence there is and I mean all of it.”
“Yes. I will.”
“Your life depends on it.”
****
After Dami had left for the palace, Paladin Chino Cortez spent most of the day spinning his wheels as he talked to various guards and other askari at Base Camp the way he and Dami had the day before. He left the mess after a late dinner, still frustrated that he was no closer to answers about Nelson’s disappearance than he had been when they’d first arrived the day before. Their shift and run out to
the training pit hadn’t brought them any closer to finding those answers and he was running out of ideas.
Chino didn’t know if it was wise to trust Captain Bennett, but since he wasn’t familiar with the layout of the camp and the vast flat desert surrounding the askari outpost, he really needed her help. Examining Askari Nelson’s body might have led to some answers as to what was off about the camp but since they didn’t have his remains, all bets were off. He’d have to investigate Nelson’s disappearance whether he liked it or not. Besides, he’d made a promise to Dami and he always kept his word to his best friend.
As he walked toward the small room they’d given him while out at Base Camp, he ran into a familiar face. Askari Takemoto did his best to school his features as he recognized Chino but his distrust and dislike was written all over his face.
“Good evening, Paladin Cortez,” Takemoto said, saluting Chino.
“Takemoto.” Chino acknowledged him with a return salute. “Have you seen Captain Bennett?”
“She might be in the mess, sir.”
“I just came from there. She wasn’t around.” Chino gave Takemoto a quick appraisal. They were of similar age but the askari was a couple inches shorter and not as broad. Then again, few cats were as large as Chino was. Takemoto had quite a bit of muscle on him but it was the sleek, compact kind, not the kind of cat to be underestimated and definitely not to be trusted. Disdain for Chino and Dami had been palpable on Takemoto since their first introduction that morning. The cat had tried to mask his scent but the distrust was easy to detect. The thing was, Chino had no idea why. They’d given him no reason to suspect their reasons for being there were anything but as they’d advertised—for Dami to take over the vacated position of primero at the king’s side.
Takemoto’s behavior made Chino very suspicious that he was hiding something and had greater knowledge of who’d kept Nelson prisoner and attacked the two doctors to take his body away. He was almost sure that the askari was somehow involved.
“Let me see if I can locate her, Paladin,” Takemoto said, snapping Chino out of his musings.
The Tiger King (Paladin Shifters Book 1) Page 11
