The Weight of a Crown (The Azhaion Saga Book 1)

by Kaeden, Tavish

  He found Jeina sitting in the corner of the hut, her face stony as she stared at Fezi's sleeping form. When she saw Xasho and the young healer, relief flooded her face, and to Xasho's annoyance, her eyes began to tear.

  "I didn't think you'd come," she sniffed. "I was sure that—" but she was cut off as Mehijxa gave a shout of surprise, whirled around, and sped out the door. Groaning, Xasho dashed after the healer, catching her just as she was about to vault back up onto his horse.

  She gestured angrily, pointing at the shed and then shaking her finger at Xasho. He did not understand the significance of half her signals, but he thought he could guess what was troubling her. He had not mentioned to the elders, or to Mehijxa, that the wounded man in need was an outlander.

  "What's happening?" asked Jeina, from behind him. "Why is she acting like that?"

  "It is as I told you," said Xasho, keeping his grip on the healer firm. "Most of my people would sooner kill you than help you. I think I may have insulted this girl by asking her to heal an enemy."

  "But we are not your enemies!" protested Jeina.

  "Tell that to the girl," replied Xasho.

  To his surprise, Jeina marched up to the girl who was struggling in his grip.

  "I am not your enemy," she said, slowly and firmly to the healer. Xasho felt the girl stop struggling, and instead she pressed herself into Xasho, trying to hide herself behind him. Xasho was vaguely amused that Mehijxa should be afraid of the pale little mountain woman, but she was after all, he reflected, still very young.

  Jeina persisted, catching the girl's hand in her own and trying her best to look straight into the Curahshena girl's eyes.

  "Please," she said, "I am asking you, begging you for help. Do you understand that? Help. My friend needs your help."

  Xasho did not know what to think, and it was obvious the little healer did not either. The act of pleading was almost unknown to the Curahshar, as the children of Himasj were taught that it was better to suffer than to so completely abandon your pride. Yet, just as Xasho had found himself unable to turn his back on Jeina, he sensed that the healer was slowly being won over. When Jeina's pleas once again turned to tears, he felt the healer sigh in begrudging acquiescence. He loosened his grip, and the three of them made their way into the shed.

  The little Curahshena girl looked Fezi over, her tongue clucking in concern. Xasho saw her wince as she took in just how many bandages had completely soaked through with the outlander's blood. She lowered her head to the wound and sniffed apprehensively, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head at the smell. She turned to Xasho, cupping her hands together and miming a drink. Xasho understood.

  When Xasho came with the water, the healer had emptied the contents of her bag onto the top of a barrel, and was now carefully sharpening the edge of a long, thin knife.

  "Why does she have a knife?" asked a worried Jeina. "What is she going to do with it?"

  "I don't know," said Xasho. "But I'm pretty sure it's not what I usually do with mine."

  Jeina glared at him. "If you're not going to be…" she began, but trailed off as the healer, who had finished sharpening the blade, slid it deftly underneath a layer of bandages cut upward. The metal split the cloth effortlessly, exposing a darker shade of crimson beneath. Again and again she repeated the motion, until a single layer of cloth remained, virtually invisible amidst all the blood on Fezi's chest. A terrible stench began to fill the air, and Xasho saw that Jeina's face had turned almost as pale as Fezi's as she struggled against the need to retch. When the final bandage had been cut away, Xasho heard the healer hiss in dismay, and saw Jeina gasp and turn away in horror. Xasho himself was unsettled by the turgid mass of pus that was barely contained beneath Fezi's skin, but his attention was drawn to something else, something that made it seem as if the world had stopped for an instant. On a thin silver chain that hung from Fezi's neck, almost embedded in the skin after being trapped beneath the tightly wrapped bandages, was a small silver ring. Unaware of anything else, Xasho stepped closer and peered intently at Fezi's chest. The silver was caked with blood in places, but there was still no mistaking the rough, odd, runes that encircled the ring. Indeed, it was much like the ring Xasho had envisioned while listening to Sidhir's description as he was given his charge. For the first time, Xasho truly looked at Fezi—beneath the matted mass of hair, the thicket of a beard which masked his face, and the features now slack and frighteningly pale. A glimmer of recognition stirred in Xasho's mind, and he suddenly found himself glad that he had not been so quick to abandon the strange pair of outlanders to their fates.

  Chapter 42: Nicolas

  The room Nicolas and Jorj had been given would have easily passed for a prison cell if it were not for the large woven tapestries which covered each wall and the absence of iron bars on the windows and door. Any furniture that might have once inhabited the room had been removed and replaced by a straw mattress tucked away in a corner and a small table missing one of its legs. And, if there was any lingering doubt that Jorj was anything other than a forced guest, two of Edgmere's men were posted outside their room at all times.

  Jorj was as melancholy as he had been since they had left Widow's Harbor weeks ago. He rarely spoke, and when he did it was only to complain.

  "I don't know what they expect me to do," he had said. "Even if I were to be able reach the girl, what good would it do? She doesn't have the strength left to fight, or even put up a pretense of fighting."

  "Why don't you just make her get up and walk, like the boy with the crippled leg in Widow's Harbor?" said Nicolas, sounding more sarcastic than he actually felt.

  "Because the exertion would probably kill her," shot back Jorj. "And because," Jorj's dropped his voice as he looked towards the doorway, "because I can't do a damned thing with Mavonin here anyway."

  "Good, the girl still has some chance of living then," said Nicolas, taking no pains to hide the disapproval in his voice.

  "Good? You think it is good?" said Jorj, exasperated. "What do you think our chances are of leaving here alive, boy, if I can't use the säel at all? You saw the Baron. The man is insane, his mind has been completely addled with grief."

  "I'm not sure it's grief," said Nicolas. "Didn't you hear the girl say—"

  "Oh, very funny," said Jorj. "As if the girl could talk, in her state."

  "I heard her. She said—"

  "You and no one else?" Jorj interrupted again. "Look, boy, if you are going to talk foolishness then find someone else to talk to. I need to come up with a plan to get me out of this alive, and you obviously aren't going to be any help."

  "Very well," said Nicolas, getting up and going to the door. He half expected the guards outside to block his way and prevent him from leaving, but though one reached for his blade the other said, "It's just the servant boy, who cares where he goes?"

  Not entirely sure what to do, Nicolas managed to find his way through the dim halls of the keep and out into the surrounding town just as the sun was beginning to set above the trees. Looking around, Nicolas could see that as lonely and overgrown as Edgmere's Keep was, it was still the seat of a Blood Marsh Lord and therefore was able to support a very modest economy. The townsfolk lived just beyond the northeastern walls of the keep, tucked away in ramshackle buildings almost as bleak and decrepit as the Keep itself. Yet, Nicolas felt strangely comforted as he strode through the few streets of the town, for even though he was leagues away from Creko's Isle, the sights and sounds of the small town often reminded him of Brightshore.

  There was only one inn, and it was not hard to find, for half of the men in the village seemed to be headed there as the dropping sun put an end to their day's toil. The tiny building was packed with bodies, and it took Nicolas quite a while before he could catch the attention of the barkeep, order a mug of unpleasantly warm ale, and squeeze himself onto the end of a bench tucked away in the inn's corner. Though he was only inches from a handful of the inn's patrons, no one seemed interested in talking to him. At firs
t Nicolas thought it was because he was a stranger, but it soon became clear that though these men doubtless knew each other, it was unusual for them to speak more than three words at a time. In fact, most of the inn's customers sat staring into their mug of ale, content to sit in silence and drink themselves into a comfortable daze.

  Nicolas had concluded that he would find no engaging conversation here, and was about to quickly finish up his ale and leave when he noticed a thin man in the center of the inn begin to unpack a lute. As long as he was here, Nicolas decided he might as well stay and listen to some music. It was better than going back to his room and spending the rest of the night trying to cheer up a despondent Jorj. Besides, who knew? If the man could strum and sing a half decent tune, he might be able to introduce a hint of merriment to the otherwise sullen inn.

  The man's lute was a woeful thing, its wood dark with grime and its strings old and false. Half the strings rattled against the wood of the neck as the bard began to tune his instrument, creating an odd buzzing resonance as the body and the strings of the lute rang at different pitches. As the young bard struck his first, strange chord, Nicolas half expected some of the patrons in the room to break out in boos, but to his surprise he saw that most everyone was watching the bard eagerly, waiting for him to continue.

  After the first few notes, it became clear that the bard was doing something Nicolas had never heard before. There were no delicately plucked sequences of notes, and none of the cascading chords that Nicolas had come to expect from the Bard who had frequented Brightshore's inn. Instead the music was heavily rhythmic, featuring a simple, distinct melody that was occasionally discordant, but at the same time strangely compelling. Though the music was alien, there was no mistaking the emotions that carried it. Nicolas could feel the anger and frustration in the music, and it was clear that the patrons around him felt it too. Nicolas saw many a man around him begin to keep time by banging his pewter tankard into the wood of a table, pounding away enthusiastically as they vented some secret inner frustration.

  Nicolas became so distracted by the reaction of the crowd that he was surprised when he heard the bard begin to sing. He had not thought that a human voice could blend with the pulsing, raucous sounds that now filled the inn, but somehow the bard's voice seemed to work perfectly with the odd music. His voice was steady and in tune, but unlike the other singers Nicolas had heard in his life, there was a strong rasp in the man's voice, which he made no effort to hide. Indeed, he seemed to dwell on those notes that resonated so coarsely in his throat, the rattle in his voice matched by the rattle of the strings on his hard-used lute.

  For a while Nicolas listened in rapture, gripped by something in the music that seemed to ring true with his own situation. He could tell that he shared a sense of helpless outrage with the singer, a feeling that life was full of injustice, and he was ill equipped to handle it. But, as he listened to the words of the man's song, he realized that the Bard was telling a story far different from his own.

  The bard sang of a girl, innocent and beautiful, but held prisoner in her own home. She was provided every comfort by her wealthy father who, though doting, treated her more like a prized animal than a person. But there was more to it than that—the song made clear that the father harbored a secret lust for his daughter, and kept her locked away from the world until she was of age to take to wife so that she could never love any man but him. However, in his dotage the father often hired players and musicians to entertain his daughter, for he thought that kept at a distance they could be of no great threat. He was wrong, and the girl became particularly attached to a singer, whose songs of the world filled her hungry mind with the wonders of discovery and adventure. She, in a child-like fashion, became infatuated with the man whose music could, for a few hours, free her from the confines and restrictions of her captivity. She began to see this man as her chance at freedom, a hero who could rescue her from the cage that, for all its luxuries and adornments, brought the girl no joy. Unbeknownst to anyone, she contrived to pass the singer a message; a plea for help and a declaration of her adoration.

  Predictably, the letter was intercepted by her father, who flew into a jealous rage. He had the singer, who himself knew little of the young girl's thoughts, beaten within an inch of his life and banished from the premises. The daughter was heartbroken, and in a fit of anguish openly expressed the full extent of her hatred for her father, who now more than just captor, had denied her at once her one greatest desire and pleasure. Her father, mad already, and driven madder still by the jealously of what he perceived to be his daughter's lust for another, snapped. In an act of paramount shame he broke her maidenhood and her spirit, and left her an empty shell. Afterwards, when he realized how completely he had destroyed his daughter, the father repented; but though he scoured the globe for the means to restore his daughter, she slipped further and further towards the cold release of the grave.

  When the bard finished his song, Nicolas' jaw hung wide open. The last few verses had cemented in his mind the notion that the girl of whom the bard sang and the girl whom Jorj had been brought to heal must be one and the same. But if that was the case, and Nicolas, a stranger, could attribute the song to its source, surely the local townsfolk could do the same? A look around the inn told Nicolas that they could. The raucous banging had subsided as the bard's pace had slowed, and here and there Nicolas could see a patron unabashedly wipe a tear away from his eye. Though only the single song had been played, Nicolas saw the bard move to pack up his lute while a few of the bar's patron's patting him somberly on the back and tossed a few coppers in his hat.

  Determined to know more about the story behind Baron Edgmere's daughter, Nicolas got up from where he was sitting and approached the bard. As he came close to the man, he could see that what he had taken for wrinkles in the man's skin were actually scars so deep that in the dim light they cast shadows on the man's face. One such scar started at his chin and ran the length of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of the man's shirt. It was no wonder, then, that the man had such a rasp in his voice. Though the scars made him look like a man of fifty, Nicolas guessed that the man was in actuality much younger, perhaps only half that age.

  "I've never heard a song like that. Is it one of your own?" said Nicolas, trying to catch the bard's attention as he finished putting his lute away. The man looked up at him, a suspicious look in his eyes.

  "It is," said the bard. "You must a stranger to The Walled Wood, or else ye'd have heard it many times before."

  "I am. A stranger, that is," said Nicolas.

  "We don't get many here, save for those the Baron brings in," said the Bard, picking at the few coppers that lined his hat. He seemed disappointed with what he saw, and asked Nicolas, "Tell me, did you like my song?"

  "I…well it left me feeling so empty, but at the same time I couldn't, I didn't want to stop listening. In fact, I wanted to ask you about…"

  "Because if you did like it, I would be grateful for your patronage," said the bard, nodding his head towards his hat.

  "Oh," said Nicolas. "Oh, of course." He reached into his pockets, dug out the pair of remaining coppers he found there, and dropped them in the bard's hat.

  "Ah. Thank you kindly," said the bard. "Now, where is the innkeeper? Singing is thirsty work."

  "I don't know," replied Nicolas, looking around the crowded room but finding no sign of the man. "But I wanted to ask you about the song. Is it about your life? Are you the bard who played for the Baron's daughter?"

  At the mention of the Baron, the bard winced. "Look," he said pointedly, "you don't want to know about my song. Trust me you don't. I'd say I sing it because it's the only one I can remember, but the truth is it's the only one I can't forget. Every night I come in here trying to make enough coin to drink myself stupid—stupid enough to forget the bloody song. But it never works. Every morning I wake up with a blinding headache, and though I can barely remember how to properly use my chamber pot, the words to the damned s
ong are still stuck in my head, as clear as day. And then, cursed as I am, I have to sing it again 'cause it's the only thing I know how to do, so that I can buy more ale, and try again. No, lad, you don't want to talk about my song."

  The bitterness in the bard's voice made Nicolas feel guilty about pressing the subject, and normally he would have left the man alone to drown his sorrows, but Nicolas sensed the bard knew things about the Baron's daughter that were too important to be left alone when his, and Jorj's, lives might be on the line.

  "But I do need to know," protested Nicolas. Then in a lower voice he added, "My master is one of the healers brought to see Diyasa. If you know anything about what ails her, you need to tell me. If I, that is, if my master and I can't help her, I fear the Baron may…well, it bodes ill for us."

  "It does, trust me," said the bard, his hand moving unconsciously to the scar on his throat. "What's your name, lad?"

  "Nicolas."

  "Mine's Kayne," said the bard. "And yes, I used to sing to the Baron's daughter. If you really listened to my song, you'll know exactly what ails her. What her father did to her…I mean, I doubt if the girl even knew what it was he did to her. Her head was full of tales of love, the faerie tale kind—deeds of valor followed by a sweet kiss. She wasn't ready for what happened. She died then, on the day her father raped her. Her body has just been slower to catch on, is all."