“Of course, my dear. As I told him, you’re both my children. I couldn’t lose either of you.”
Even though it felt strange and unnatural to consider doing, Leisha moved from under the covers and went to sit near him. She reached out tentatively and hugged Symon, and if he was surprised, he did not act like it. He wrapped his arms around her and returned the hug. “I was so scared,” she whispered, a hard admission for her to make.
Symon patted her back and stroked her hair. “I heard you were very brave. You’re safe and so is he.”
Servants arrived with heaping plates of food which Leisha and Zaraki both devoured in silence, but Symon saw how they sat, holding hands under the small table, never letting go. He shooed them both back into bed. “The doctor said days of rest. Days. Both of you.”
After eating, Leisha asked Symon to bring her some paper and a quill so she could begin drafting orders. She caught the look Zaraki gave her and meekly sank back into the pillows. “I’m sure everything can wait,” she said.
***
Any thought Leisha might show mercy vanished two days later, the first morning Zaraki entertained the idea of her working. While alone with him, she played the pliable invalid, but once Symon, Ani, and Andelko entered, ready for orders, they saw her transform into the angry and vengeful queen. Her enemies had threatened her throne, her life, and her people. She was ready to make them pay.
By midmorning, a company of the Queen’s Horse, recalled from their training grounds outside Moraval, set out for the Tymek. Each man wore the hawk and sword on their tabards and on the banners snapping in the wind as they rode out from Lida. Their orders took them over the mountains to Cheylm Castle, where they would oversee the eviction of Staval’s family for their part in his treason. They must have known some of what he planned. If anyone refused to leave, Leisha promised to pull the whole thing down and feed them all to the flames.
Two handfuls of captured mercenaries who survived the night sat below in her dungeon. From her bed, she ordered their execution, one a day until they were all dead, their sentences to be carried out near the small window in Staval’s cell. Then she turned her attention to her uncle.
“I want to know who supported Staval in this. He wouldn’t have risked something this grand without some other lords underpinning it. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the dungeons and dig the names out of his mind myself,” Leisha said and felt the power stir, restless and impatient, ready to act.
Out of bed finally, and leaning against one windowsill, Zaraki shook his head. “No, you won’t,” he said with a firmness no one used with Leisha. Andelko and Symon turned wide eyes on him and sat back in their chairs, preparing themselves for her anger. She was still queen, regardless of this new relationship. “I’m sorry, but you’re not risking yourself.” Zaraki did not sound sorry at all. He sounded ready for a fight.
“It would be one time,” she began. “No different than what I did to you before.”
“You’re not doing it.” He shrugged, disinterested and signaling an end to the conversation. With the attack on the keep and the experience they shared, he felt the shift in their relationship. They would be partners now.
Leisha scowled and opened her mouth to protest. She drew an angry breath, ready to remind him he could suggest all he wanted, but he would not order her about. Then, remembering the fear on his face and in his mind just a few days before, she knew she would not be the cause of that again. How things had changed.
“All right. Get the names from him. Andelko, use whatever means you want.” She paused to reconsider. “No, wait. I’ll offer to let his family remain in one of his small homes, instead of beggaring them for life. He must be alive and well for the Convocation. I want to make his death a spectacle. Symon, when the invitations for the Convocation go out, inform the lords there will be an event the night before they’re required to attend.”
“Of course. I’ll have the scribes set to work today,” Symon said, amazed by this transformation.
Andelko, silent until now, spoke up. “We’ve started interrogating his men. We need to understand what happened down there.”
Leisha closed her eyes as foreign memories raced past her. “I can help fill in some gaps. When I was in Fellnin’s head, I learned things from him—saw memories.” She took several breaths and tried to put them in order. “Fellnin followed you here, Zaraki. From somewhere.”
“Ostrava, most likely,” her offered, wincing as he thought about bringing Fellnin to Lida.
Ani nodded. “That fits with what we’ve learned already.”
“Staval hired him to assassinate me at the parade. When that failed, my uncle kept him on. He’s been watching us for Staval for years.”
She stopped to fit more pieces together. “They were planning this attack for months. Well, not this one, but a similar one. It was supposed to happen during the wedding—they assumed I would marry Lukas.” Leisha twisted her lips in annoyance. “They had to act before I had a child with him because then Staval would have no claim any longer.
“When Lukas left, only to be replaced by Zaraki, Staval seemed to think he could use it against me. Taking up with a commoner.” She paused again, thinking hard. “The mercenaries have been here for quite a while, as has Fellnin. He posed as a spy for hire and went to work for Dumin. He used it as a cover for bringing in weapons and men. When Dumin needed to hire guards for the party, Fellnin used his own mercenaries.” Now she shook her head.
“There’s more, but I can’t make sense of all of it. Get answers out of the men below, Andelko.”
After dinner, they retired early. Zaraki’s injuries still exhausted him at the end of the day. But Leisha woke in the middle of the night from a dream where everyone she loved died. As her heart raced, she curled against him relieved once more to have him here in her bed. Laying her head on his shoulder, she ran a hand over his chest and felt him stir. He slept so lightly. Sorry, she sent. Back to sleep.
“You don’t get to start that and not finish it,” he mumbled, opening his eyes.
She raised her head to look at him. “Are you sure?”
“Very,” he assured her.
They reached for each other, both afraid but both needing this. Zaraki kissed her, tenderly at first, and then with more urgency, pulling her close. Leisha sat up and stripped off her shift. Naked in the scant light coming in through the windows, she helped him out of his nightclothes. “Lay back,” she ordered. “You’re too wounded for the things you’re thinking of.”
Careful to avoid hurting his still tender ribs, Leisha straddled his hips and leaned forward to kiss him. She left a trail of feather-soft kisses down his chest, and just before she took him in her mouth, she looked up to see him watching her.
She loved hearing his breath catch and loved the way his body tensed. Moving slowly, she learned what made him moan and shudder. Like this? she asked, gratified when she heard Zaraki gasp and swear and profess his love for her.
“Come up here. Please?” His voice sounded hoarse, and now she knew why it excited him the way it did when he made her beg. Her heart raced as she kissed her way back up to his collarbone, his neck. Leisha lowered herself onto him, forcing him to wait when he lifted his hips. Then, his hands went around her waist and they were both lost, rejoicing at being alive and together.
The next morning her doctor declared her fit and Leisha visited the dungeon with Symon. She made numerous promises not to read Staval or try to force him to tell her anything. In truth, she did not want to touch his thoughts.
“Open the door,” she ordered the guard. “Don’t bother with the manacles. I can kill him if needed.” He knew. Everyone knew now. She stood in the doorway and regarded her uncle for several moments.
“And what will you do with me?” Staval sneered.
“I’ll keep you alive for another month,” she said flatly. “Until the Convocation. Then you’ll meet the flames, just as you planned for me, in front of all the lords. I’ll take your lands and give them
to whoever speaks the loudest to denounce you. Your family is already homeless.” She let it sink in before continuing.
“However, you can save them a lifetime of poverty if you tell me who conspired with you. I’ll let them keep a small home. At least that way, there may be someone left to sing songs about you when you’re dead.”
“All of my family?” he asked as if he had any position to negotiate from.
“Your bastard sons are innocent, I assume?”
“Yes.” Of course, he lied. He wanted to know his legacy survived at least. Staval paced around his cell watching her, but Leisha knew he would tell her.
Execution
Leisha debated where to hold Staval’s execution. Sending her uncle to his death in front of the town and the nobles seemed fitting, given his men killed townsfolk, but she decided the courtyard at the castle provided the best security. For a month, Staval lingered in his cell and listened as his men were herded out one by one to their deaths.
Once the nobles began arriving for the Convocation, Andelko put on a show of force. The Queen’s Horse made their presence known around the camps springing up outside the city. They carried standards with Leisha’s hawk and sword and wore her colors on their horses. The Queen’s Guard patrolled outside the city walls in gold and blue.
The afternoon before the Convocation, Leisha watched her nobles as they rode under the portcullis and into the courtyard at Branik. They all knew. All through their camps outside the city walls stories swirled about the night of the attack. Now, they all knew she could kill. Servants directed them to the side yard, where they gathered as far away as possible from the stake sunk into the ground and as far away from where the queen stood for the execution.
At the appointed hour, Andelko and one lieutenant led Staval toward the stake. As they approached, Leisha stepped in front of him. She looked at him for a minute before leaning in close to one ear. “We searched Cheylm and found the letters your sons left behind—the ones that implicate them. They’re next,” she promised in a whisper.
Stepping back, she nodded at Andelko to continue, then turned to her lords.
“Staval,” she began, “is sentenced to die for his crimes against me, against my crown and against my people. Because of him, children in Lida will grow up without fathers. Because of him, wives have lost husbands. My people have suffered at his hands. You may disagree with me, you may rail against me, but none of you will bring violence against me again.”
When Andelko touched the torch to the pyre, she stood watching as the flames leapt into the air. In a land that valued strength in their kings and queens above all things, Leisha would not flinch or look away.
***
After the execution and once the lords had returned to their camps for the night, Leisha made excuses to leave the apartments and promised to return before long. When Zaraki asked where she was going at this time of night, she did not have to lie.
“I’m going to visit Symon,” she said and smiled at her golden-haired lover sprawled across her – their bed. She would go see Symon, but first she went to her mother’s old rooms and retrieved the two bundles she had hidden there a week ago.
When she tapped at Symon’s door, he opened it and looked surprised. “Come in, Leisha,” he said, still pleased she had begun allowing him to call her by name.
He showed her into his apartment and she wondered why she had never come before. A lifetime of things, gifts from her father, curiosities collected from trips all around the kingdom, furniture older than she could imagine filled his rooms. Books and papers lined the shelves set against the wall. Everywhere she looked, Leisha saw treasures.
“I need a favor from you,” she said, handing him the two cloth-wrapped bundles. “Tomorrow, I need these to be under your chair before the Convocation.”
Symon raised his eyes brows but did not ask questions as he took the parcels from her. Flaunting generations of tradition, she now invited commoners to the noble’s secret meeting. When asked, she gave very vague answers about why she wanted himself, Jan, Zaraki, Andelko, Aniska and Eli all in attendance as her guests. He looked at her, puzzled, wondering what she planned.
Leisha smiled. “You may look if you like.”
Pulling back the plain wool cloth on the smaller bundle, he chuckled. “The lords will never consent to this.”
“Symon,” she said, sounding disappointed. “You underestimate how persuasive I can be. I don’t need their consent, but I’ll have it. Please, keep this a secret.”
Leashed
Leisha opened the third Convocation of her reign sheathed in red and gold, looking like the conflagration that devoured her treacherous uncle the night before. Her seamstresses had fashioned a red silk gown with fitted sleeves slit to the elbow. A panel of gold reached from the low neckline all the way to her feet, embroidered with red thread and rubies, shaped like leaping flames. A wide gold fillet held her hair, threaded with strands of rubies, back and out of her face. As she stood on the raised platform waiting for all the nobles to take their seats, she stared out at them silently, fierce and confident.
His wounds healed, Zaraki wore a white tunic under a gold-embroidered vest. His red silk coat hung to his hips with Danica’s handiwork matching the stitching on Leisha’s dress. In their coordinating outfits, no one could miss the intent. He sat here as her lover and she would not tolerate threats to him any more than she would threats to herself. In private, she had told him she wanted to honor him, along with the others, for their role in saving her throne and preventing civil war.
Watching her, Zaraki thought she looked imposing and wrathful. Even he wanted to shrink back when her gaze swept over him as he sat in the front row of seats. Next to him, Symon, Andelko, Jan, Eli and Aniska all dressed in blues and golds, embroidered with the hawk and sword, all looked equally as uncomfortable. Lords around them whispered about commoners attending their Convocation, but none raised their voices to protest, remembering the fires from last night.
The milling nobles found their seats and Leisha stepped to the edge of the dais, the flames on her gown swirling around her feet. “Welcome, everyone. We all know about the events yesterday and I won’t address them unless anyone wishes to discuss it.”
The silence stretched.
No one had been burned alive in Tahaerin for over a century.
“No?” Leisha asked, pleased at the discomfort she saw on her nobles’ faces. “Then, the first order of business today is to honor those who saved my crown and my throne from the treachery of my enemies a month ago. Symon, you have served my family for your entire career. Your appointment as castellan is yours for as long as you want it and if you choose to retire, you may remain at Branik Castle as a treasured member of my family. You may ask any favor from me and if it’s in my power to grant it, I will.” She smiled at him before turning to the man next to him.
“Andelko, you’re promoted to Lord Constable, in charge of all my armies. You’ve also earned the right to ask any favor from me. Aniska, you’ll take over the duties of spymaster and you, too, may ask for a favor. If it’s in my power to grant it, I will.” She granted Jan and Eli each a favor and positions under Aniska to keep them home more often. Leisha nodded to each of them in turn, acknowledging their service. She had thanked them in private but wanted to make this public declaration.
Aniska looked down the row at Zaraki, confused. “Spymaster?” she mouthed at him. He shrugged, apparently out of a job. They had not discussed this earlier, but he was very familiar with Leisha’s unilateral decisions.
“The next order of business is the settlement of the Tymek. Staval died for his treason and I’ve stripped his family of all their holdings. I propose establishing a new house there.” She paused, sweeping her gaze around the room again as muffled voices disagreed. Most of the nobles preferred the Tymek be divided, especially those neighbors who would gain land from it.
“Lords Ceslav, Valentyn, Benedyct and Petr have each voiced support for this plan already.”
She fixed each of the four lords with a hard stare. Surprised, as none of them had given any such guarantee, they shrank back, understanding exactly what the look meant. Staval named them all as co-conspirators before his death. They would support her in this or the fire would consume them.
“As a reward for the service provided to this kingdom and to your queen, I will elevate my former spymaster to the peerage and make him Lord of the Tymek.” Now voices erupted in protest as nobles jumped from their seats. They shouted demands she divide the land or give it to an existing family. It was blatant favoritism to gift her lover something as extravagant as this. Leisha looked on and waited for the four traitors to do the work for her. They glanced at each other before turning to those around them and making a case for it.
Zaraki stared at her. They never discussed this, not once. She made eye contact with him but nothing more. His lovely, devious queen would get what she wanted, after all, and it was a brilliant move. Down the row of chairs, he saw Symon smothering a grin as he laughed to himself.
Leisha watched the proceedings with interest, noting who stood together, who argued most ferociously. She did not intervene, but merely made herself visible, pacing from one end of the dais to the other. It took half an hour, but when the room quieted again, threats made and every possible favor called in, the lords gave their grudging consent. The conspirators each breathed a sigh of relief, but she turned a withering glance on each. They should not consider themselves forgiven, nor their crimes forgotten. Forever beholden to her, they would be kept as dogs on a leash.
“Do you accept, Zaraki of Lida?” she asked. It’s a gift freely given. So you really must, she sent to him, laughing.
He nodded, stunned and speechless.
“Then come forward.” Leisha gave him a small smile and beckoned to him.
Removing the cloth from the bundles under his seat, Symon pulled out a simple coronet and a more ornate sword and scabbard, dug out from her father’s things. Together, the two men mounted the dais though Zaraki looked like he might attempt to bolt for the door. When he stood in front her, Leisha saw his hands shaking. He hated being in the spotlight.
A Gift Freely Given (The Tahaerin Chronicles Book 1) Page 36
