by Jane Shoup
How bizarre. He looked happy. He looked in love. He looked as if he utterly believed the tale he was telling.
Inside, servants were busy moving Jade’s belongings to the chamber that adjoined the king’s, while Salvo Voreskae gathered Corin’s harem, as he’d been instructed. “The king has married,” he announced.
There was a collective gasp and then a din of noisy exclamations.
Eskarne looked murderous. “Married? To whom? When?”
“When does not matter,” Salvo replied scornfully. “It was a private affair some time ago.” He paused. “As to whom, Lady Jade, of course.” This caused an even bigger clamor. He had to wait for it to die down before he continued. “You are all free to go,” he said loudly to get their attention. Which it did. “You will be paid a stipend for your time here, or—” Already the commotion was too great to be heard over. “Or,” he yelled.
“Quiet,” Eskarne screamed. “Shut your mouths!” She turned back to Voreskae, still glaring.
“Or,” Voreskae continued. “Some of you may continue on as dancers or maids.”
“Maids?” Gitana cried. She held out her hand to display her mark. “We are the king’s women!”
“You were the king’s women. Now, there is only one woman, his wife, so he no longer requires your services.”
“Did he say that?” Eskarne demanded.
“Naturally, I am telling you this at his command.”
“How much is the stipend?” one of them called.
“How many dancers can stay?” Gitana asked. “And who will choose? I want to stay!”
Salvo sighed with disgust. How any man was attracted to emotional, irrational females, he would never understand. “We’ll keep a few dozen or so of you as dancers and to perform other services as required.”
“What other services?”
He raised a brow at her. “Services you formerly performed for the king.” It was laughable how shocked they all were. “The stipend, if you prefer, is based on the amount of time you’ve been in residence. You may see me one at a time for specifics.” He paused before adding, “However, if you choose to stay, you will no longer speak to or look directly at the king.” He looked around to make sure they were taking him seriously and then he looked at Eskarne. “And you will never, I repeat never, address the queen or even look directly at her.”
“The queen,” someone said under their breath.
“Yes, the queen, Lady Jade Corin.”
“I do not believe this,” Eskarne uttered. She looked close to losing control of the rage and tears that threatened.
“Believe it,” Salvo returned coldly. “It has happened.”
Marko escorted Jade back into the palace, walking slowly. “If you’re not up to walking the stairs, we can take the lift. Or I can carry you.”
“I’ll walk.”
He grinned. “Stubborn, as usual.”
His ease at pretense was perplexing. It was almost as if he believed it. “Am I?”
“Oh, yes. I never mind it, unless we’re in a disagreement. But, that doesn’t happen very often.”
When they got to the landing of the second floor, she was reconsidering taking the lift, but he took hold of her elbow to redirect her.
“This way, my love. You’re coming back to our rooms. The physic thinks you’re well enough now.”
She froze. She needed a moment to catch her breath and to adjust to this newest development. He’d just spent the last hour weaving an intricately detailed account of her life. He’d assigned her a mother, father and an elder sister named Isabella, all of whom had died in a sweeping winter sickness. He’d spoken so tenderly, frequently stroking and kissing her hand.
“I believe you’ve overdone it,” Marko said. He scooped her into his arms and began carrying her.
“No,” she objected. “I only need a moment.”
He ignored her. Guards opened doors and he walked into the largest, most beautiful bedchamber she’d ever seen. The décor was restful shades of blue and soft green. The high ceiling was coffered and painted with individual frescos. Ceramic vases, some as tall as her, held exotic foliage. He sat her at the foot of the bed. Straightening, he asked, “Does the room seem familiar?”
She did not trust her voice. She could only shake her head. Even breathing had become difficult.
He sat beside her. “Being away from you has been the loneliest time of my life.”
Trapped. She was trapped in a charade that she had begun by feigning the loss of her memory.
“But now we’ll resume our lives and they will be even better than before. It occurred to me that it’s for the best that we didn’t have children before now.”
She felt herself shaking.
He saw it, as well, and rose. “I’m going to send in your maids. You need to rest.”
She was relieved he was going. “Yes.”
He gave her a loving smile. “We’ll take it slow and leisurely for a few days.”
We. What had she done? He leaned down to kiss her cheek before leaving. What had she done?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Marko felt true contentment for the first time in his adult life. He and Jade had just made love. She hadn’t been the passionate partner that she would be in time, but she hadn’t been lifeless in his arms either. He pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head. Her arm rested across his chest. This was what he’d been missing. Not only love, but a wife, a partner for whatever life presented.
“Marko?”
“Yes?”
“I want to know more about your life.”
“Ah. Well, I don’t remember my mother,” he began.
“I don’t e—” she broke off with a sense of shock because she’d begun to share a real fact of her life with him. Only when she realized Jade could say the same, did she relax. But the fact remained; she had just begun to open up to him. It was the pretense of marriage taking a toll. “Either,” she finished. “Or not much.”
“My father,” Marko continued, “was a good man. A good leader. I told you that he was assassinated when I was twelve.”
She pulled back to better see him.
“It was heartbreaking. I loved him and we needed him.”
“I don’t remember how it happened,” she said.
“There was one day each fortnight when my father dealt with citizen’s concerns. They were called open court days. It was one of those that a man named Nede Vhord attacked my father with a dagger.”
“Was he mad?”
“I don’t know. He claimed that taxes had ruined him. Or so I was told. The thing I never learned was how he smuggled the dagger in. No one was supposed to have weapons on their person when they were admitted. Of course, after the slaying, policy changed. We no longer have open court days.”
“How are citizen’s issues handled now?”
He hesitated and frowned. “Various ways,” he replied.
There was a defensive tone to the reply. He was not accustomed to being challenged or doubted.
“I killed him, you know,” Marko said.
“Who?”
“Vhord. He escaped after the attack, but he was caught and made to confess. And I killed him.”
“You mean to say you ordered his execution,” she said slowly.
“No. I was handed the dagger he’d used on my father.”
She shuddered with disgust. “But you were only twelve.”
“Thirteen. It was the day of my thirteenth birthday.”
She pictured Nicolas being forced to kill a man. Even a man who had slain their father.
“I was brought in, Vhord formally confessed, and then Zino, my father’s chief counselor, handed me the dagger and announced it was the day I became a man.”
Ammey felt sickened at the thought. Unwittingly, tears sprang to her eyes.
Marko closed his eyes. “Forcing a dagger into a man, hearing him scream. It was more terrible than I can say. And they were all watching me. I just wanted it to be over.”
Ammey put her head on his chest and wrapped her arm around him. As Marko stroked her back and her hair, she felt the tenderness in him. He longed to be loved. Could she love him? She cared about him.
“I’ll tell you something no one else knows,” he said quietly. “It’s a secret you can never tell. Promise?”
She nodded. “I promise.”
“I went into the garden after I’d done it. After I’d killed him. Vhord’s blood was still on me. On my clothes. It was wet on my hands. I walked calmly, or tried to, until I knew no one else could see me. And then I ran. I wanted a place to hide. I was still running when I tripped and fell and then vomited. Right in front of a ugaria bush. The ground was muddy from the rains. I tried to wipe the blood off my hands, but …the mud. I was crying and, of course, I wanted to hide the evidence of it. Men do not cry. But the mud got everywhere. My face, my hands. I was such a mess that I had to wait until dark to sneak back into the palace and return to my room.” He paused before adding, “To this day, I cannot abide the scent of the ugaria bush. I’ve had most of them torn out, but they grow back.”
“Oh, Marko,” she said in a low, tremulous voice.
“You’re crying,” he said regretfully. He turned her over and hovered above her. “Oh, my love. It was a long time ago.”
“It was a terrible thing to force a boy to do. I hate Zino!”
“You don’t even know him,” he rejoined gently, wiping her tears away. “It’s true he’s made mistakes, but he’s always had my best interest at heart.”
She shook her head. “That was not in your best interest.”
“He thought it was. If my brother hadn’t been so ill at the time, the responsibility would have fallen on him.”
She blinked in surprise. “Brother?”
He nodded. “I had an elder brother. William. He died shortly after my father.”
She’d never known that. “How?”
He shook his head. “He became ill. None of the physicians could find the cause. I stayed with him night and day, but he just grew more and more ill.”
“That must have been devastating after losing your father.”
“It was,” he replied quietly.
“What was he like?”
“He was the milder of us. He would have made a better king.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He was slow to anger, highly intelligent. I had no patience for my studies.”
She watched as his expression grew strained. “What is it?”
“I was recalling Zino’s support in quitting my studies after my father died. I was glad of it then, but, from this vantage point, I realize I should have been made to continue. But Zino stuck a dagger in my hand, declared me to be a man, and then provided an introduction to women and wine.”
Ammey jaw clenched, she so detested Nafino Zephyr. “That does not sound like someone with your best interest at heart.”
“Enough sad talk. Let’s talk about what you want.” He kissed the side of her throat. “Name it and it’s yours.”
“I want to ride again,” she said carefully.
“We will,” he assured her.
“We both know that you have important matters to attend to.”
“None more important than you.”
“But you were right when you said we should get back to our lives the way they were.”
He grew serious. “Things can never be as they were. Not for me. I nearly lost you. And I want a life with you. A long and happy life. I want children.” He smiled tenderly. “There is nothing in the world more important to me than you. I love you.”
She couldn’t respond. She couldn’t even breathe.
He shifted down and put his head on her chest. “Nearly losing you changed everything. It’s as if I was one man before, but now I’m reborn. We’re both reborn. And this time, I’ll be the man and the king I should have been.”
The sigh that escaped her was real. She was trapped in a charade and it was changing her. It was changing him. It was changing everything.
“I can hear your heart beat,” he murmured sleepily. “It’s my favorite sound in the world.”
~~~
It was a fine morning and Mehr was almost to the courtyard when he heard Marko call. He turned and frowned thoughtfully as Marko strode toward him. “Don’t tell me. I know your face.” He tapped his forehead in feigned concentration.
“Amusing,” Marko said. “Walk with me.”
“Actually, I was walking first, so—”
Marko chuckled “Must everything be a challenge with you?”
They fell in step. “You look happy,” Mehr commented. “How is everything?”
“Wonderful.”
“And how is your wife?”
Marko glanced sideways at him. “You must learn to say that without a smirk.”
“I’ll work on it.”
Marko stopped. “I’m serious. I never want her to have another moment’s concern, and she won’t, if I can help it.”
“Spoken like a man in love.”
“So it is.”
Mehr slapped his cousin’s arm. “Bravo.”
They started walked again. “Have we heard back from the envoy to Shilbridge?” Marko asked.
“With Zino back in charge, how would I know?”
“He’s not in charge. Do you resent it so that I didn’t have him killed?”
“Don’t be naïve, Marko. If he’s free to come and go as he pleases, he is in charge. No matter what authority you think you’ve stripped him of.”
“What would you have me do?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
They stopped on the steps of the first of the formal gardens. “I do wish for a change,” Marko confided. “I have decided to retire Zino. He made a terrible mistake, but he has spent thirty years in our service. He’ll be given an estate.”
Mehr sniffed. “Make the estate in Oisenbant and I’d say it is a wise and just decision.”
Marko grinned.
“And Voreskae?”
“Same. Retirement. I would like your advice on who to put in command of the army.”
Mehr made a face. “My advice? What do I know?”
“More than you let on, I think.”
“I do not know the army, Marko. Zino and Voreskae have been in charge of it for as long as I can remember. They’ve instituted a complex system and at the top of that system are those infamous—”
“Wolf packs,” Marko supplied when Mehr hesitated. “I’ve noticed everyone avoids using the phrase around me unless they’re drunk.”
“The problem, as I see it, is those men are loyal to you through Nafino Zephyr. It’s his authority they know.”
Marko thought about it. “Sounds like the perfect recipe for a coup. We’re not too late to act, are we?”
Mehr sighed at the use of word we. He had stated again and again that Zino was dangerous and should be removed from office. But there was no point belaboring a matter that could not be altered. “Tell me your thoughts and plans. Will you continue the aggression?”
“The aggression?”
“What would you call it? Gobbling up neighboring towns and villages, annexing cities to increase the size of your army, reaping destruction for the sake of fear and the hope of paralyzing—”
“Fine, yes, I understand!”
“Do you want the whole of Azulland?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Why would you? You have an army of thirty thousand. More, with the addition of Uerad and Ghlaxmire troops. You have a city, a beautiful city, parts of which you’ve never seen. You have everything and yet you live a protected existence within the palace.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Marko! Listen to your own heart. Make your own destiny, rather than following the one Zino assigned you.”
Marko allowed the words to sink in. “What if I am not ambitious for more?”
“Certainly not th
e worst that could be said of a man,” Mehr replied. “Or a king.”
“What if I want nothing more than to have a wife and a family and live in peace?”
“Peace is a noble effort, Marko. Peace would be a blessing to the masses.”
Marko nodded slowly. “I wish to recall the wolf packs and the envoy to Shilbridge.”
Mehr’s eyes glistened. “Excellent.”
Marko looked off. “I should go speak with Zino. I’ve put it off long enough.”
“Why don’t you let me?” Mehr offered.
“You don’t think I’ll be able to do it.”
“I think …I know of some wonderful properties is Oisenbant.”
Marko grinned and shook his head.
“What I really think,” Mehr said, “is that it would be easier for me. He was not like a second father to me.”
The amusement vanished from Marko’s expression. “He was no father to me. No matter how many times he claimed to be.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zino stood at a top floor window staring down at another division making their way back toward the palace. All his planning and work. For nothing. The vibrant colors of summer had faded, just as his potential had. They should have had an agreement in place with Shilbridge by now. They should have been moving their forces toward N’awllah.
“What are we to do?” Salvo asked for at least the tenth time. The month they had been granted to get their affairs in order before vacating the palace was nearly up.
“Stop frothing at the mouth,” Zino snapped. “That will be a start.”
Salvo sighed as he watched the returning troops. “He could have had it all,” he said sadly.
Zino couldn’t bear to have the sentiment spoken aloud. “We will have it all,” he pledged with an edge to his words.
“How?”
The answer suddenly dawned on him and he turned to Salvo. “We find another Vhord, of course.”
Salvo blinked. “For Corin?”
Zino gave him a scathing look. “For Jade. Who do you think instigated all this? Do you think it’s coincidence that our boy discovers his backbone the same time he takes a wife? Remove her, and he comes back to us. Crushed, dejected. The only family’s he has left.”
