The Misbegotten King

by Anne Kelleher Bush

  He rushed to the window. “By the One.”

  She peered outside. Although the darkness obscured the view, it appeared that one side of the stables had collapsed, folding in upon itself like a house of cards, an enormous pile of stones and tangled lines. In the wards below, the grooms and the men-at-arms called frantically, trying to rescue what horses they could before the fragile structure collapsed further.

  Roderic turned to her. “I’ve got to get down there. Will you be all right here?”

  “Roderic, this was Magic. Remember the backlash—there may be more to come. I think we would be better off in the hall.”

  A frantic servant knocked on the door of the outer chamber, “Lord Prince, Lord Prince. Please come—”

  “Here I am, man, I’m here.” He called out as he hugged her closer and pressed a quick kiss on her forehead “Come, I’ll see you safe to the hall.”

  The door opened and the servant peered into the room, clearly frightened. “Lord Prince—Lord Prince. The Lady Tavia sends you this message. Amanander—”

  Fear bolted through Annandale as Roderic looked up. “What about Amanander?”

  “He’s gone. Lady Gartred with him. The Lady Jaboa’s dead. And Alexander—”

  Annandale listened in horror, half certain of what the hapless servant would say before the words were out of his mouth.

  “Alexander lies as Amanander did—in a sleep beyond our reach.”

  Chapter Four

  The rising sun cast the courtyards into inky wells of debris and dark piles of haphazard stone. Roderic stared out the windows of the council chamber, watching the weary stonemasons scramble amidst the rubble at the direction of the captain of the engineers as they sought to stabilize what little remained of the northern tower. The clear light of morning revealed the extent of the disaster. Surely months would be required to undo the work of the previous night.

  From his litter on the floor beside the council table, Phineas shifted against his pillows.

  “Tavia was right,” Roderic said softly, as he turned his back to the window and watched Phineas’s sightless eyes roaming randomly beneath his papery lids. “I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance at Minnis last summer, instead of letting him live.” The bitter taste in his mouth had nothing to do with the sleepless night he had just spent.

  Once more, Roderic turned to the window and leaned against the glass, staring at the wreckage which filled the inner ward of Ahga Castle. Never again would the five towers of Ahga rise so proudly against the sky, her square bulk comforting and reassuring as the power of the Ridenau Kings.

  “Roderic.” Phineas’s voice rasped gently behind him, and reluctantly Roderic turned to face the man his father had relied upon all the years of his reign. “This was not your fault.”

  “You don’t know how much I wish I could believe you. The north tower’s in ruins, and parts of the west may be damaged beyond repair. Every door was ripped off its hinges. In all the confusion, Amanander just walked right out.” He could not hide the bitter edge of his words. He stalked to stand over the council table, the long plate glass reflecting rainbow prisms in the early morning light.

  “My son—” began the old man, and stopped as someone rapped on the door.

  “Yes?” Roderic raised his head, glad that the interruption had prevented the old man offering any more sympathy. This was his fault—he knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He had not learned to govern the whole of Meriga by shirking his responsibilities.

  The door opened slowly, reluctantly, and a tired-looking servant let Annandale precede him into the room. “Lord Prince. Your lady-wife.”

  With a terse wave of his hand, Roderic sent the servant on his way. Annandale closed the door.

  “Roderic, I must speak to you.”

  Phineas struggled to sit straighter at the sound of her soft voice, and Roderic noted the dark shadows beneath her eyes, the faint shadows of strain beside her mouth. This was the first time he had ever seen her look so utterly weary, and instantly he wondered what could have brought her to him at such an hour and at such a time.

  “What’s wrong? Are the children all right?”

  “Oh, yes. Melisande slept through it all, and Rhodri is fine.” She paused.

  “Then go to bed, sweetheart. We can discuss whatever we must later.”

  “No, Roderic.” Her voice was firm. She touched Phineas’s shoulder, and the old man took her hand in his gnarled one and pressed it close. She raised her eyes to Roderic’s. “We’ve seen to Jaboa’s lying-out. A messenger should be sent to Brand at once. You must make sure to tell him she didn’t suffer.”

  Roderic pressed his lips together. Jaboa’s death raked his heart as cruelly as a lycat’s claws. She had been the closest to a mother he had ever had, but he shook off the mind-numbing press of his grief. There was no time now to mourn. “It shall be done, lady. Is there anything else?’

  “We must be ready, Roderic. There will be some repercussion to the Magic—somewhere, someone must be feeling the effect. You should be prepared for anything.”

  “What about us? Do you think it will strike here?”

  She shrugged. “I have no way to know. That’s part of what makes the Magic so terrible.” She hesitated and bit her lip. “I have seen Alexander. Roderic, you must come and speak with him.”

  “Speak with him? Is he able to speak?”

  She nodded, twisting her fingers in the fabric of her gown. “I was able to—to reach him. He’s very weak, weaker than he should be, and in truth, I don’t understand why. But you must come and hear what he has to say yourself, for what he says concerns not only Amanander—but the King as well.”

  “The King?” Roderic echoed, as Phineas gasped softly. “What did he say about Dad?”

  She shook her head tiredly. “It made no sense to me or to Tavia. Please, won’t you come?”

  For a long moment he stared at her. Finally he nodded. “Very well. You want me to come now? All right.” Outside a gull shrieked and the shouts of the men rose above a dull crash. “I’ll finish here with Phineas and meet you in his chambers.”

  Annandale patted Phineas’s shoulder and nodded.

  When she was gone, Roderic stared at the ancient maps of Old Meriga beneath the glass. “I had planned that Brand and the army should withdraw into the Highlands and await me there. But I think, in light of the current development, that a more strategic withdrawal is called for. I am going to order the troops to retire to Ithan Ford. What do you think?”

  The old man stroked his chin. “You give ground in order to gain it. You do understand that Atland’s heir might have a hard time understanding the necessity of a retreat.”

  “I understand that. The master engineers are assessing the damage. As soon as I have some idea of what must be done here, I will be off to Ithan as soon as possible.”

  Phineas knitted his fingers together. The rising sun cast a glow over the white linen and shone through the sparse wisps of hair which clung to the old man’s scalp. In his youth, Phineas had sat at the King’s right hand, had been the most powerful man in Meriga after the King himself. Even now, Phineas retained more than a vestige of that authority.

  “Ithan Ford is a good choice. You are easily accessible to the Highlands… Atland’s sons will hesitate to attack you there. But you must bind your allies into a strong coalition, Roderic. You can not afford to lose any more supporters.”

  “I know Amanander is going to strike, Phineas. The question is where.”

  “And when.”

  “Soon. Where is the more troublesome question. I cannot be in two places at once.” He broke off and sighed. “I keep remembering what Nydia told me the day I found Annandale. She said there would be war in all four corners of the realm. So far, she’s proven right.”

  Phineas drew a deep breath. “Be wary, Roderic. There are factions within the Congress—Abelard believed he could hold the lords in submission with the grip of an iron fist, but under the pre
sent circumstances—”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Roderic placed his palms flat against the cold glass of the tabletop. “So I was thinking…”

  “Yes?” prompted Phineas.

  “I will call for a Convening at Ithan before I leave. Let the Senadors remember what the threat of chaos feels like, in case any have forgotten. And let them see how easy it might be for their own sons to rise against them.” He looked Phineas full in the face as though the old man could meet his eyes. “Atland, or Atland’s heir, must bring a formal request for aid before the Congress, and I will only act if the Senadors consent. I have read the law, Phineas, the ancient law of Meriga. Only the Congress can declare war, especially against one of their own. Do you understand what I am trying to do, Phineas? You do agree with me, don’t you, Phineas?” His resolution failed momentarily in the face of the old man’s silence.

  “Roderic,” Phineas said faintly, “of course, I understand. How could I disagree with you?”

  “I shall call all the Senadors—even Ragonn and Vada, and all the rest who rose against my father. I can’t afford to let ill-feeling fester anywhere in this realm. My father may have ruled by the strength of his will, Phineas, but I must find something stronger and more enduring than the will of one man. Meriga must be ruled by the force of its laws.”

  “You will send for Owen Mortmain himself?” Phineas’s voice was a shocked whisper.

  “I must,” answered Roderic. “I will send for them all, not the puppet administrators my father set over them. Nydia was right—in every corner of the realm there is the potential for disaster. The Settle Islands against Mondana—Vada and the Western lords against me—the South divided against itself—even here—” his hand swept over the northeastern peninsula “—Phillip’s self-interest makes him a danger not only to me but to every other Senador in the region. What if the lesser lords in the Dirondac Mountains took it into their heads to invade Nourk? Could Everard stop them? Could I?”

  Age-spotted skin stretched taut across Phineas’s bony knuckles as he pressed his hands together. “Roderic.” He paused, as if gathering his thoughts. “This may well be the better way, but it is not without danger of its own. Do you have any idea what it will mean to bring the entire Congress under one roof? The enmity between factions goes back centuries in some cases, to the Armageddon and before. I am not certain that all of them are farsighted enough to see that if one Senador’s son challenges his father, all of them are vulnerable.”

  “This is not what my father would have done, is it, Phineas?” The ghost of a smile played at the corners of the old man’s mouth, and Roderic cocked his head, puzzled. “What are you thinking, Phineas? Do you think Dad would be completely displeased?” Self-doubt gnawed like a toothache. Beside the memory of his father, he felt himself sorely lacking.

  Phineas drew a deep breath and raised himself higher on his pillows. “I was fourteen years old when I swore my first Pledge of Allegiance to a Ridenau King, and ever since, I have sought to uphold that pledge by any means at my disposal. Abelard no longer reigns in Ahga. He may be King yet in name, Roderic, but you are the ruler of the realm. I will not waste my time thinking of what Abelard would have done, because it no longer matters. Since the day you were proclaimed Regent, the decisions which mattered to me were yours.”

  “Have I made the right decision, then?”

  There was another long silence, broken only by the muted shouts of the workmen in the inner ward. “You have made a good decision, Roderic. I wish I could tell you if it were the right one. I can only make you aware of who your allies are, and who is not.”

  “Let me guess. Kora-lado, Tennessy Fall, Mondana, Arkan—”

  “Take Gredahl with you, and make sure of his support on the journey. You will need the Arkan lords to hold the Harleys at your back. You don’t want to fight a war on two flanks.”

  “Gredahl requested aid from the garrisons.” Roderic suppressed a sigh.

  “We must look to the north for reinforcements. Before you leave, letters must go to Everard and Phillip—it is time that your brothers bore their share of this war. And what of Reginald—what does Brand say of the garrison in Atland?”

  Roderic withdrew the folded parchment from the inner pocket of his tunic and slowly smoothed it on the table. “He doesn’t say.”

  “Nothing?” Phineas’s voice rose to a sharp pitch and the old man’s eyebrows arched. “No mention of Reginald at all? Why didn’t he ride to the defense of Grenvill?”

  Roderic shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine. Grenvill is less than two days march. It should have been possible for Reginald to relieve the garrison, or at least attempt to, but Brand makes no mention of him at all.” Slowly, Roderic reread his brother’s dispatch, wondering as he did so how he was going to break the news to Brand of his wife’s death. Abruptly his eyes flooded with tears. He choked back the emotions, trying to focus on the matter at hand, and from the very deepest recesses of his brain, some half-forgotten warning tolled like a distant bell. He sighed, hoping that when he spoke his voice was steady. “According to Brand, the army was intercepted between Grenvill and Atland garrison. Reginald should have had a clear march.”

  Roderic raised his head and frowned. “Now that I think of it, this makes no sense. There are over five thousand men garrisoned at Atland. Reginald…” The words faded in his throat, and his eyes dropped once more to the parchment before him. Treachery. Brand said Deirdre had suggested that someone somehow had betrayed the cause of Atland’s heir.

  Brand, hard in the thick of things, had enough to contend with without looking for treachery. But he had thought enough of Deirdre’s opinion to put it in the dispatch, and Roderic, who knew the terrain and the roads of Atland better than he cared to, saw at a distance what Brand could not.

  “What are you thinking, Roderic?” Phineas’s voice quavered unexpectedly.

  “I am thinking of treachery,” Roderic answered. “Deirdre—the M’Callaster—suspected treachery. Brand mentions it, but only in passing. I think…” Again he let his voice trail off, lost in thought, knowing that there was something about Reginald he ought to know.

  Reginald, the youngest of Abelard’s illegitimate sons, commander of the garrison in Atland for as long as Roderic could remember. An able enough soldier, but no diplomat—Phineas had sent Everard, another brother, south after the last Muten rebellion to ensure that Reginald’s blunders did not break the tenuous peace. Would his own place in the birth order of Abelard’s brood make him sympathetic to the demands of Atland’s younger sons? And during the Muten rebellion, hadn’t he noticed Reginald in Amanander’s company more often than not? A thought which even then had struck him as odd, for Amanander was polished, fastidious, and Reginald reeked of old sweat, his stringy hair matted and greasy. If ever two brothers were direct opposites, surely it was Reginald and Amanander. But no alliance in the quest for power was unlikely, thought Roderic. “It’s Reginald,” he said, more to himself than to Phineas. “I should have seen this before. It was Alexander who warned me. All those months ago in the Settle Islands— he warned me to expect an attack upon Ithan. But it never came, and I forgot about Reginald. What made him wait, Phineas? What made him stay his hand?”

  “If he allied himself with Amanander, while Amanander lay here in Ahga, perhaps he wasn’t sure what to do. Reginald has always been an able enough soldier, but he lacks subtlety. He would have waited to see what happened next. But I suppose the lesser lords were able to persuade him to aid them in their fight against Kye.” Phineas paused. “I think,” he said, softly, “you had better leave for Ithan as soon as possible. This realm is like a house of cards—one tremor and the whole nation may collapse.”

  “Will you come with me, Phineas?” Roderic asked. He ran his hand over his jaw, feeling the rough haze of his beard. He felt like a boy barely old enough to shave, let alone a man old enough to govern a country.

  There was another long pause, and finally Ph
ineas spoke, his voice a thin quaver as though he held back some unnamed emotion. “Of course I will come. My son.”

  Chapter Five

  Alexander lay against white linen pillows, his shock of graying hair outspread. His face had a sickly yellow cast; his lips were cracked and bloodless. His dark eyes seemed to peer at Roderic from miles away. He looked like a withered husk, from which all the vitality had been sucked by some loathsome parasite.

  Tavia hovered in the doorway. Her white-streaked hair was twisted in a careless knot at the nape of her neck, her apron smudged with blood and dirt. She had spent most of the night tending the wounded in the great hall below. “Don’t tax him too much,” she cautioned, just before she shut the door, leaving the two brothers and Annandale alone.

  “Alex.” Roderic leaned over the sick man, searching the web-wrinkled face for a response.

  Alexander turned his head slowly as Annandale bent low to whisper in his ear. “Tell Roderic, Alex. You must tell Roderic what you told me.”

  “What can you tell me of Aman, Alex? Where has he gone?”

  “Death walks.” His voice was less than a sigh. “On two legs. I see his face, and it is mine.”

  “Do you mean Aman, Alex? Where’s he gone?”

  “Beyond our reach. Far, far beyond us all.”

  “Do you know what he intends? Can you tell me what he will do?”

  Suddenly, Alexander’s eyes snapped open. His head righted against the pillow and his eyes stared up at a place on the far wall. A visible pulse pounded in his temples. “He grows like a worm in the bud—he will bring such a blight upon the land, and he smiles… oh, how he smiles to do it. Beneath the stone mountain, lies the King—where the dark is blacker than the night, colder than the grave.” He drew a deep shuddering breath, staring across the room with such a look of utter horror and dismay, Roderic involuntarily glanced at the blank wall. “Oh, Aman,” groaned Alexander. “Why don’t you just let him die? Let him go—how can you hate Dad so much?”