The Immortal Crown

by Kieth Merrill

  Sargon gripped the pole and snugged the rope. The noose tightened. Sargon kept his hand on the pole as Qhuin lashed the leather straps of the handle to the iron ring, securing it to the brace of sycamore wood outside the cowling and tethering the captive horse.

  “Samma, samma, samma,” he shouted to the milk-whites, pulling the bronze bits against tender mouths. They slowed, shook their heads with triumph, and then stopped.

  The wild mare pivoted around the point of the pole and thrashed her head. She pulled against the noose, but she was tied to the chariot by the rope and iron ring. The weight and strength of the milk-whites kept her from dragging the chariot away.

  Sargon leaped down and strode toward the horse.

  Her eyes ignited in a flash of fire. She lunged and chomped at him with her teeth and nearly took a bite from his face. The princeling stumbled back against the side of the chariot. He tried to grip the wheel, but he stepped into a rat hole and landed in a humiliating heap at Qhuin’s feet.

  Qhuin found it hard to believe the princeling was stupid enough to think that catching a wild horse subdued her wild instincts. “Let her settle!” he barked. “She’s frightened enough. Back away.”

  “What did you just say?” Sargon gasped as he struggled to his feet. He brushed dirt from his silks and tried to regain a regal stature.

  “I’m sorry, m’lord. I misspoke. It’s best we give her time to calm.”

  “Calm? It’s a wild horse! What’s best is to teach the cursed beast who its master is!” Sargon glared at Qhuin, who did not miss the double meaning. Sargon grabbed the whip and lashed the mare across the face.

  “No, m’lord, you must not—”

  Sargon lashed the horse again. “I think you’ve forgotten who is master and who is slave! I command you to stand aside!” The princeling kept his distance from the captured horse but taunted her with the snapping whip.

  The mare jerked her head against the pole with each pop of the lash. The noose tightened around her neck.

  “See,” he said with a nervous laugh. “She learns quickly that her life is in my hands.” He lashed the wild horse across her knees and cannon as if training her to the high step favored in parade. The wild mare pranced to get away.

  “No, m’lord! You mustn’t!” Qhuin stepped forward with his hands outstretched.

  The princeling lashed the whip across Qhuin’s open palms and giggled like a child playing games.

  Qhuin jerked his hands away, and the princeling snapped the whip at his knees and shins.

  “Let’s see if you can king-step as well as your horses.”

  Anger surged in a rush of blood to Qhuin’s head and, with it, a flood of dark memories.

  He had been at Blackthorn all his life and had known the princeling as long as he could remember. Though close in age, the princeling never noticed him. Why would he? Qhuin was an orphaned slave. Nothing more than a possession. Sargon, on the other hand, was the son of Kadesh-Cor, Baron Magnus and prince of the North, raised from birth to believe he was superior to everyone, coddled and over­indulged.

  The princeling’s abuse of animals was a topic of frequent conversation among the stablemen. As a youngster, Sargon had killed chickens with his bow and arrow, sometimes dogs. Everyone knew, but no one dared comment or complain. Qhuin suspected Kadesh-Cor knew as well but still let the boy do what he liked. More worrisome than dead chickens were the whispers he heard in the stables: “If the ‘right people’ died, Sargon would end up king.”

  Rusthammer’s words remained with Qhuin. “In a saga of kings, the uncertainty of who will live and who will die looms on the horizon like the black clouds of a coming storm.”

  When Sargon was fourteen, his cousin’s Alaunt went missing. The dog was found many days later, tied up and starved to death in an abandoned cellar of the keep. One of the servants was flogged and set in the stocks for neglecting the dog, and that was the end of it. But every­one knew it was Sargon’s work. The hound had nipped him on the hand, and he had taken his revenge.

  Qhuin could still remember the smirk on the princeling’s face as he watched the flogging of the servant from a balcony above.

  Qhuin jumped away from the strike of the whip. The welts swelled red.

  The princeling’s laugh was high-pitched, childlike, even girlish. He scowled at Qhuin and lashed the horse a savage blow. Then again.

  Qhuin grabbed the princeling’s wrist with such sudden, unexpected force that Sargon was thrown to the ground. He wrenched the whip away. It took Sargon a moment to comprehend what had happened.

  A feeling of dread washed over Qhuin. He regretted his impulsive action even before the princeling spoke.

  “You are going to die for that,” Sargon said as he clambered to his feet. “You insolent, stupid imbecile!” He drew his short sword from the scabbard at his waist.

  Qhuin stood his ground as Sargon laid the point of his blade on the soft flesh of his throat.

  “I’ve the right to kill you for touching me. Do you understand, you ignorant fool?”

  Qhuin tensed every muscle and clenched his jaw. He cursed himself for the burst of rage that had put his life in peril. He struggled to control the fury still seething inside. It was a flaw he’d struggled with from his earliest years.

  Sargon put pressure on the blade until the point of it pierced the skin. A trickle of blood stained the top of Qhuin’s tunic. “But I’m not going to kill you,” he said and lowered the blade. “I want to teach you a lesson so you and your kind don’t forget what you are. Put out your hand!”

  Qhuin glared at Sargon until the princeling flushed and looked away. “Give me your hand, slave!” he shouted like an adolescent in a tantrum.

  Qhuin knew cutting off a body part that offended a royal person was an old tradition. The slave who cared for the hogs had a stump instead of a hand.

  Sargon raised his sword. “By the gods, put out your hand and bear your punishment or I shall cut off your head!”

  Qhuin put out his right hand, but not as he was told and not as Sargon expected. It came fast and jabbed straight into the princeling’s chest with all of Qhuin’s weight behind it. In the same motion, he seized the quillon of the sword with his left hand and wrenched it free.

  Sargon flew backward, striking the wheel of the chariot. His mouth hung open in surprise. When he spoke, his voice was pinched. His eyes bobbed from the cold stare in Qhuin’s eyes to the short sword in his hand.

  “No! No, don’t. Please, I wasn’t really going to. I was only trying to frighten you, as a warning, a reminder of your place. You know that slaves are not allowed to touch a royal person, so please, I was just . . .”

  Qhuin walked forward slowly, the sword comfortable in his hand.

  Sargon tried to keep a defiant lift to his chin and stop the trembling of every limb, but he could not.

  “I know my place, m’lord,” Qhuin said in a constrained and respectful voice. “You know me only as a slave of Blackthorn, and I am that. But I am also a horseman in the stables. I am the driver of your chariot. I have given you first catch and won for you your wager. I have put the welfare of the horses first and, in doing so, m’lord, have been obedient to your father, whose expedition this is.” Qhuin paused, picking his words carefully. “But you err, m’lord. Whether you or your father—the king or the gods themselves—may not allow me to touch you, as you suppose, you’d do well to understand that I can.”

  He placed the point of the sword on the creamy flesh below the princeling’s quivering chin. “I, and others like me, can touch you. And I, and others like me, will—whatever the consequence—if pushed too far.” He paused to let the fear take root before he finished. “I think it wise for you to leave the care of the horse to me, and our disagreement forgotten.” He held the princeling’s eyes, and when he spoke again, his tone was mocking. “M’lord.”

  Sargon nodded
in vigorous agreement, but his smile was disingenuous, his acquiescence a lie.

  Qhuin dropped the sword on the ground and turned to the wild mare. He whispered to her as he haltered her head and removed the choking noose of the lasso-pole. He tied her to a high tree limb lest she wrap the tether around the trunk and become tangled in the rope.

  A claw gripped Sargon’s gut. He dared not confess his envy of the slave, even to himself. He wanted to be like him: confident, courageous, skilled. No! He is a bondsman. A slave.

  He hated Qhuin for making him feel small and insignificant. He would kill the thing he envied, destroy the prowess he coveted but could never claim. He would see the slave’s head on a spike.

  Sargon, son of Kadesh-Cor, jutted his chin forward and vanquished his humiliation with a single thought: The slave is going to die!

  CHAPTER 50

  “Open your gates in the name of the king!” the Raven growled. He thrust his fist through the iron crosshatch of the portcullis so his two-fingered ring was close to Meesha’s face.

  She stood with the gatekeepers and guardsmen at the entrance to Stókenhold Fortress.

  “Lord Tolak, the master of Stókenhold Fortress, and my mother, Lady Katasha, and my brother, the noble Princeling Valnor, will return from the village before the sun is down, m’lord. No stranger may enter Stókenhold Fortress except by their invitation.” Meesha cared little that her family’s titles had been stripped in exile.

  “Are you blind? Can you not see I wear the sigil of the king?”

  “I see, m’lord, but these are strange times with rogues about. No man can be trusted. I’ve met scoundrels in the markets of Westgarten who peddle forgeries of that very ring.”

  “I am Raven to the King!”

  “With apologies, m’lord, I’ve no way to know that is the truth.” Meesha shook her head.

  “I demand you allow me to enter. Send word to the captain of the prison that the Raven to the King demands his presence. There is a prisoner here that I must see at once!”

  “I pray your forgiveness, m’lord, but you arrived without herald or dispatch. I have never known an emissary of the king to come without a harbinger of his arrival brought by royal courier. And from what I know of such things, it is most unusual for an emissary of the king to ride without a kings­riders’ escort.” She peered through the gate to affirm he was alone. “Is it not, m’lord?”

  “My visit to Stókenhold Fortress was unplanned, but it is a matter most urgent. I demand that you open the gate!”

  “I may not, m’lord, but I would be pleased to have refreshment brought while you wait.”

  The Raven gripped the iron bars, his knuckles white. He lowered his face, and his eyes disappeared in black shadows. Then he threw his cape across his shoulder, opened the top of his linen blouse, and exposed the bare skin.

  The sight of the lumpy flesh took Meesha’s breath away.

  The sigil of Orsis-Kublan had been burned into his chest. The peacock and her bloody arrows were a pitted scar just below his collarbone. His hairless chest was pallid compared to his swarthy face. The brand was fresh, and the ridges of seared flesh were purple with dried blood.

  There were whisperings about the king’s secret oath of fire, but Meesha never imagined it might be real. How could the king—my ­grandfather—engage in such a depraved ritual? Am I truly the flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood?

  Meesha had been told whoever bore the mark had sworn themselves to the king. Not as a soldier or a servant or a slave but as a votary having pledged their life and surrendered their soul to the king’s wishes.

  Before me is a man who has traded the very essence of his breath for the pride, the pleasures, and the possessions bequeathed by the throne of power. He has sworn an oath of blood and ritual of fire unto death. She shuddered at the thought.

  The Raven stood straight. “By the power of this mark, whether by my voice or the voice of the king, it is the same. My command is his command. My mind, his mind. By my word, I have power over your life and your death!”

  Meesha’s mouth was dry. Her lips moved, but no words emerged. She traded looks with the gatekeepers and the guardsmen. They awaited her order. Her eyes moved to the outer gates, hoping beyond hope to see her father and brother returning.

  The Raven buttoned his blouse slowly as if the flesh were still tender and the pain of the branding lingered.

  Meesha was afraid to open the gate, but she was more frightened by what might happen to her and her family if she refused. Having seen the mark, she knew he must be who he claimed to be. She raised a hand to the gatekeeper. “Let him in.” Her voice was weaker than intended.

  The men threw their weight into a synchronized winding of the two-handed winch, and the heavy grate of the inner gatehouse began to rise.

  The screech of rusted iron over iron sharpened Meesha’s fear that letting this man into Stókenhold Fortress was a mistake.

  The echo of leather boots on stone rolled through the vaulted tunnel. The Raven followed the keeper of the prison through the winding passage that sloped downward to the lower dungeon. The jailer was a corpulent oaf of a man with fat hands and thick lips. His ruddy cheeks seemed out of place for a man who lived like a mole. The patch of hair on his chin was color of mud. He carried a torch of rags soaked in sheep tallow and oil. It stank.

  Meesha followed at the edge of the light. The Raven insisted she come as a witness to affirm the propriety of his official visit to a prisoner, but she knew it was a lie. Following the confrontation at the gate, she knew he dared not let her out of his sight.

  Meesha listened to the Raven describe the prisoner to the jailer as they moved through the passage. “He’s an old man,” he explained. “There are some in the villages south who call him ‘the prophet’ . . . or did.” The Raven dragged his hand over his beard and twisted the two-fingered ring with his thumb, making sure the keeper saw it clearly.

  Meesha’s stomach burned, and her mind whirled with dark expectation. She tried to calm her pounding heart. It was all she could do to keep from running away. Is it possible the Raven knows?

  “Hmm,” the jailer mused. “This prisoner have a name?”

  “He must surely have a name,” the Raven answered, his disdain unguarded, “but I know him only by what he is called by the pilgrims—‘prophet’ or ‘holy man,’ perhaps.”

  The keeper’s laugh rumbled through the chamber, crude and unpleasant. “Half the wretched souls we got down here come from among the pilgrims. Most likely all of them think they’re holy.” He guffawed again. “But I know the one yer after! Crazy as a loon, that one. Couldn’t shut him up from his ranting blasphemies, so we put him in the pit.”

  Bile rose in Meesha’s throat. Her eyes flitted to the Raven, who turned at that moment and looked at her. He knows, she thought. Will Father and Valnor get here before it is too late?

  There was a labyrinth of passageways beneath Stókenhold Fortress. The ancients who’d raised the first castle atop the cliffs had discovered a honeycomb of natural caverns and made them into catacombs. Later occupants cut passages to connect the caverns, adding walls and floors of stone and brick until it was a dungeon.

  It was a pitiful place, made worse for the wretched souls condemned to a cell no larger than a crypt and imprisoned where other men were buried. Ceilings had crumbled. Walls had fallen. Sections were blocked off.

  Along the main passageway were quarters for the keepers of the prison, a tumble of small cells, and a place for torture. Beyond that there was a dark and dangerous maze of forgotten stairways, pits, and passages.

  The oubliettes were at the lowest level. Deep pits lined with mortared rock, and walls too smooth to climb. They were covered by a wooden trapdoor in the cell’s ceiling.

  The jailer used his torch to light an oil lantern, then stuffed it into an iron sconce. He tied the handle of lantern to a length
of shaggy hemp and walked to trapdoor marked III.

  The jailer lifted the heavy covering and let it fall open. Wood thudded on wood, and the putrid smell of rot and human waste wafted up from the hole. The Raven gagged at the rancid stench. Meesha covered her face with the sleeve of her blouse.

  “Wake up, holy man,” the jailer bellowed as he lowered the lantern. He breathed as if the stink were a fragrant garden breeze instead of the foul air of human misery.

  The Raven pressed a hand across his mouth, looking into the hole and squinting against the darkness. The sway of the flame sent eerie shadows slithering over the wet stone walls like evil wraiths fleeing from the light. A colony of rats gnawed on moldy crusts. All but one scurried into cracks at the sudden light. The biggest rat stood its ground with a hump of bristled hair and snarl of rotted fangs.

  The jailer gasped. “He’s gone!”

  “Gone? How can he be gone?” the Raven asked.

  “I do not know, m’lord, but he isn’t there!” The keeper licked a blister on his trembling lower lip, then chewed until it bled.

  “That’s impossible!” the Raven said.

  The jailer’s eyes grew large as his reason was ingested by his superstition. “They said the old man was a mage.” His voice trembled, and his eyes darted to the shadows as if to see an evil spirit.

  “Not even a sorcerer with the powers of Aka’mainyu could escape such a pit,” the Raven began, but his voice quivered.

  Meesha could see by the fleeting look of fear on his face that he wondered if the missing man was indeed endowed with supernatural powers.

  “The rats must’a eaten him,” the man said with conviction. “Better hungry rats than black magic, but where are the bones?”

  Meesha shuddered at the thought of a man being gnawed to death by rodents. She clenched her jaw to stop the tremors. Even if the Raven to the King finds out . . . She felt a surge of optimism.