by Coral Walker
Clutching the side of the bed, he pulled himself up. His eyes fell onto the surface of a round table.
Jane Eyre.
“Why is this here? Brianna was reading it.” Frowning, he walked over and picked up the book.
“Ms Upright gave it to me, and I took it. Honestly, I didn’t know Brianna was reading it.”
She stared at the book and her face reddened. With a few quick clicks of the pen, she changed the topic of conversation.
“It’s impossible to make Brianna cooperate. It seems to me there is some force preventing it. They are natural enemies — don’t you see — made to fight rather than help each other.”
“The mouse,” Peter pointed at the small cage in the far corner.
She turned and flushed more. “Again, it was Ms Upright.”
He shuffled across the room and bent low to glance at the cage.
“I agree with you, Nina, it’s a force of nature. We cannot compel her …” he muttered as he fixed his eyes on the little creature running on the exercise wheel.
“…but perhaps, the wheel, the wheel, we can use the wheel,” he said. A quiver of excitement pulsed through him.
+++
He left Nina just before dawn and was stopped in the corridor before he reached Brianna’s room.
“Nobody is allowed to visit her,” said one of the blue-faced guards.
“I am her doctor. I need to check on her,” he reasoned.
He could tell the term doctor had no effect, and the guards’ eyes, cold and suspicious, lingered on the book, the mouse, and then his face for a lengthy moment. They let him pass at long last, but, to Peter’s unease, tramped behind him.
The door was locked although it had never been locked before. He fumbled in his pocket for his card. Before he found it, one guard elbowed him aside to swipe the pad with his card, and the other pulled the door half open and, with a rude stare, watched him enter. The door shut immediately behind him.
The room was brightly illuminated. Brianna was lying motionless on a long bed in the centre of the room. The sedative must have been heavy, or the brilliance of the lights would certainly have woken her. Noiselessly, he tucked the book under her pillow and placed the wire cage with the little mouse on her bedside table.
Her head was tilted at an awkward angle. He turned it so that it lay softly against the pillow. A long cut crossing her forehead still looked open. Apart from the wound on her forehead, she had many cuts and scratches on the backs of her hands and forearms, apparently from the flying glass. With routine efficiency, he put on his coat and surgical gloves. The cuts were still in a raw state, with no sign yet of any immediate healing. Perhaps the sedation had deprived her of the chance to heal herself.
With painstaking slowness, he removed each splinter of glass that his straining eyes could spot. When the last wound was tended to, his eyes were sore and bleary, and his back ached dreadfully.
With whatever strength left in him, he cleared up the mess and stripped off the coat and gloves. When he came back to her, he stood holding his breath for a brief moment, mesmerised by her young, soft-edged face, and let his face widen into a tender smile.
He took his leave, dragged his leaden legs to the door and spun the round button on the wall to dim the light before laying his hand on the doorknob. He turned it forcefully this way and that and, with much annoyance, realised he was locked in.
The reinforced window on the door was small, just enough for him to peek into part of the corridor. He could see the two blue-faced guards standing a distance away in the corridor, heads lolling on their shoulders as if dozing.
He cursed and fumbled purposelessly in his pockets. There was little he could do except shout and bang loudly on the door to wake the two idiot guards from their damned slumbers.
That might disturb Brianna, and he couldn’t bear the risk.
He limped back to the bed and slumped into the armchair nearby. Arms drooping and legs sprawling, he felt the pain in his aching back, but, nevertheless, in a few minutes he sank into a shallow, troubled sleep.
8
The Ring
Princess Zelda was kept in the deepest level of the dungeons. With uneven steps, they trod along the dark, cracked passageway. Something wheezed underneath their feet. It sounded erratic and intimidating, enough to send chills down their spines.
Higo knelt at the next crack to peek down himself. Right away he jumped back up.
“I knew it,” he exclaimed, punching the air. “Bokwas, your Highness, they are all over the place.”
“Bokwas? Why?” Marcus was puzzled.
“It started in your absence, my liege. Without an heir apparent to the crown, the kingdom was in an uproar of riots and rebellions. So Lord Shusha took advantage of the situation and had them all agree to install a network of tunnels for bokwas. As a result, half of Bara is on top of the network, and rebels, traitors and lawbreakers alike faced unexpected visitors. Their homes were infested with bokwas and their family and friends were killed. The dungeon sits right at the entrance of the network. No wonder there are so many of them underneath.”
Higo gave a chuckle and added, “Stubborn prisoners here might find themselves not alone in their cells.”
Marcus glanced about the place, damp and dimly lit. His eyes lingered on each of the ugly, gloomy doors and he felt a tightness in his stomach at the prospect of entering one of them.
To his surprise, the cell where Princess Zelda was kept was clean, spacious, well-lit and tolerably furnished. Had it not been for the chains hanging from the walls, it could easily have been taken for an unremarkable household room.
At once he saw her, lying on a bed up against the wall, bound with fetters. The dress she was wearing struck him as odd. Nothing but the finest silk could make it as smooth and gleaming as that. Next to the bed was an upholstered chair with its padded seat curved in. Marcus touched it. It was still warm.
“She just had a visitor. Who was it?”
The warden, an old, bleary-eyed man, shrugged, and in a secretive manner, cast his eyes askance.
There was a hidden door on the sidewall. Marcus walked over at once and felt along its edges. It seemed to be a sturdy door, securely shut. No handles, no knobs. It must always be operated from the other side.
“Where does it lead?” he asked.
The old man shook his head, looking sheepish, or, Marcus thought later on, frightened.
He walked back to Zelda, and his heart pounded as he gazed down at her. No matter how peculiarly it had struck him in the first place, he had to admit that the creamy dress fit her stately, curvaceous figure well.
She looked serene.
“Zeleanda …” he whispered softly in her ear.
Her head moved slightly, and a frown ruffled her forehead.
“I am Marcus.”
The furrows on her forehead deepened, and her eyelids fluttered.
“Marcus, I am Marcus,” he repeated.
For a moment, he thought he had her — the spark of recognition and joy in her half-opened eyes, but too fleeting to be certain.
“She can’t talk, your Highness.” The bleary-eyed warden said in a small, regretful voice. “Sino, we were ordered to keep her quiet all the time.”
“By whom?”
The old man trembled. “The … the … Queen, your Highness.”
“Why?” Marcus moaned.
“It must be that her Majesty the Queen was worried that Princess Zelda might say things that would harm you, your Highness. Don’t take it hard.” Higo answered shuffling his feet.
“For my sake …” said Marcus in disgust, “Is this the same reason she’s put to sleep in the daytime?”
“I don’t know about that, your Highness, I swear.” The old warden shook his head.
“Perhaps a clandestine visitor from that secret door likes to visit her while she is asleep,” Higo suggested, and then muttered to himself, “I wonder who that could be.”
Two pairs of glowing eyes fel
l sharply on the bleary-eyed old man, and Higo, making things more intimidating, rapped the sheathed sword that dangled from his belt.
The man swayed on his feet, looking pathetic with his drooping shoulders, and cried, “I don’t know, your Highness. I swear by the head on my shoulders. I don’t know. Except, just once, I saw Lord Shusha sitting there, and … I don’t know how he got there.”
The desperation in his voice seemed real enough. With a sigh, Marcus turned back to Zelda, stooping over her. “Princess Zeleanda, wake, I pray you. It’s me, Marcus — do you remember me?”
To his delight, with a small tilt of her head, her eyes fluttered open, and she was now looking dizzily at him. He saw her curled hand twitch and open as if to reach him, and, with slight hesitation, he placed his hand into hers. At once she grasped it and drew it to her chest. Her heartbeat was quiet but steady.
The next instant, she seemed to drift off again.
“Stay with me, Zelda. Don’t yet fall asleep. Tell me, by blinking if you can, have we ever lived together as husband and wife?”
Seemingly startled, she wiggled her head and forced her eyes open. Her dizziness seemed overwhelming, and she struggled to concentrate. When finally, her gaze fixed upon him for long enough to be meaningful, her lips moved.
“Blink if it’s a yes,” Marcus suggested, and his heart filled suddenly with tenderness.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she blinked.
“Did we have three children,” he muttered, watching her face brighten up at the mention of children, “and were their names Jack, Brianna and Bo?”
The breast under his hand rose and fell ponderously. Her gaze, smouldering with sudden passion and ardent longing, fell on him. He trembled under its intensity, as his understanding twisted awry and crumbled amid confusion and incomprehension. The next instant he recoiled, too ashamed to carry on, and with his face burning with frustration, stuttered.
“I … I … can’t … remember, you know. The memories must be somewhere in my head, but I can’t reach them. I CANNOT REMEMBER ANY OF YOU!” he shouted the last few words and with that, slumped into the chair, a defeated man.
The metal fetters clanked as Zelda struggled to raise herself from the bed. The old warden stepped forward and brandished his baton over Zelda. “She’s very dangerous, your Highness,” he exclaimed gallantly.
“Leave her. Never touch her with your baton!” Marcus boomed.
The fury in Marcus’s voice gave the old man such a jolt that he shuffled back looking sheepish and pathetic again.
“Were we happy together?” Marcus asked in a soft tone, leaning forward.
She looked at him, eyes sparkling with pity, and blinked. Then she dropped a hand over the edge of the bed and extended it towards him. His heart still pounding with shame, he took it without hesitation and pressed it tenderly in his palms.
He felt the cool, soft skin, the curved shape of each finger, and momentarily shut his eyes to probe the depths of his mind for some sense of familiarity that might be triggered by their touch.
But there was nothing but emptiness.
The hand in his palms had its own will. It found its way to his face and softly stroked his forehead as if to smooth the furrows out.
Without realising it, he flicked her hand away.
She sprang back in shock, the fetters clanking around her neck. The impassioned gleam dimmed in her limpid green eyes, and in its place was the look of a wild lioness.
He was shocked too. Smiling awkwardly, he held up both his hands to mollify her but to no avail. How could he explain it away? As a Baran man who had no recollection of her, and who had grown up with the habit of regarding any Rionean woman with contempt, he had not intended to be at all rude and impudent, but had reacted instinctively to her hand.
“I … I … just can’t remember any of it,” he muttered, and shook his head in distress.
She gave him a sharp glance, as a stranger might, and slumped back.
“Zelda,” he called, in the hope of rekindling the tender sparkle in her eyes.
She turned her head away.
For a long while, he sat with his spirit dulled and stared blankly at her.
“Prince Marcus. Captain Martiloo wants you,” the sound of Higo’s voice roused him. Slowly, he turned and looked up. It was Captain Martiloo all right, and behind him was a squad of royal guards with swords in their belts. If it had been in a different setting, he would have got up to greet him, and they would have grasped each other’s shoulders. As one of his companions, Captain Martiloo had joined him on hunting trips countless times.
But there was something in the Captain’s face that kept him seated — the cold and distant look of a man with a duty to discharge, and an obvious tension in his bearing.
Arching his brows, Marcus gave an exaggerated startled look as if he had just met the wrong person in the wrong place. “You want me, Captain Martiloo?” he asked.
“Yes, Prince Marcus,” he answered and saluted him with a stamp of his boots.
“Am I being arrested?” Marcus looked around at the guards surrounding him.
“No. Not yet.” There was an audible chuckle in his voice. “According to this,” he patted his pocket where a red roll stuck out, “from now on you are restricted to your residence until your circumstances are clear.” He paused for a possible protest, but Marcus sat still and kept silent. “You are only allowed to leave your residence if you have the permission of the King.”
Father, who sleeps most of the day!
Seeming to understand the situation, Martiloo added. “… or the Queen.”
Dropping his head, Marcus sighed.
“We must take you back to your residence now, your Highness. Please come with us.”
He rose obediently. But before striding away, he cast a long look at the figure on the bed. Downhearted and greatly dismayed, still he felt his heart drumming with hope. At this particular moment, he wished the woman on the bed would turn her head and, if events should unfold in his favour, speak. In his despair he longed to hear her voice, as if the sound of it would shake him out of his dreamless trance, and awake in him the memories that had long lain dormant.
+++
“The Queen is waiting for you, your Highness.” The butler greeted him with a low bow.
“No, I don’t want to see her. Tell her I shall come to see her tomorrow.”
“But …” the butler started to protest.
Without stopping to listen, he strode past him.
The room was shaded from the drawn curtains, and the prospect of falling into a deep sleep was comforting. If he could sleep, he might, in the faraway land of dreams, reach the things he had otherwise lost.
Perhaps.
Without taking off his clothes, he fell backwards onto the bed, which sank under his weight. In the gloom, he looked blankly at the ceiling, staring at the indistinct contours and shapes, and thought how completely the shadows recast the beams and roof trusses, clear as they were while lit, into a shapeless mass. In much the way his memories were obscured by a baffling twist of fate. If only he could see them clearly.
Princess Zeleanda, her alluring eyes, her prominent cheekbones and her lips that were so soft and full. Why was he trembling with affection when he thought of them? Had he kissed those lips before, or was it just a sensation created out of nothing?
A sigh from the corner of the room startled him. He sat up.
“Marcus, my dear,” a quiet, smooth voice said.
He immediately recognised the voice and strained his eyes to locate her.
In the deep shadows, she sat.
He rose to his feet, reached her in two long strides and kneeled. “Mother, I didn’t know you were here. Have you waited for long? I should, at least, have been informed that you were waiting in my room.”
“Don’t blame them — I asked them not to, Marcus.”
He sprang to pull open the curtains to let in the soft glow of the twilight. When he knelt again, the sight o
f the queen’s tear-furrowed face alarmed him. “You have been crying, Mother,” he cried, “Shall I ask for some tea? A tea of Savi leaves will soon calm your nerves.”
“My nerves will not be calmed until I know what is waiting for us.”
“Mother, I regret whatever has caused you such distress. But if it is on account of me, please then spare yourself the tears. The onus is mine and mine alone, so let me bear the burden and settle it myself.”
“What do you mean by settling it yourself? What’s in your mind, my dear? I need to know, son — I am your mother. It has been eating me alive, and I can’t bear the thought that …” she shivered, her head sinking, “… you might die with them.”
“Them?”
“The Rionean woman and those three children.”
“What led you to think of that, mother?” he laughed, as heartily as his tight chest allowed.
“A mother knows her son,” she started sobbing, “You have a soft heart, Marcus, and never liked killing. I couldn’t make you the stonehearted king they wanted you to be, but I tried my best to keep you away from direct contact with Rioneans. Had it not been for that fateful battle with the Rion princess that you voluntarily took apart in …” she paused to dab her eyes. “You put Rioneans on an equal footing with Barans. How peculiar that rancour and resentment never took root in your heart.”
“We share the same features. Aren’t they the same as us from that perspective?”
The innocence in his tone provoked more deep sighs and eye-dabbing.
“If you take the side of a Rionean, my son, you will be fighting a losing battle. Trust me, become king first and fight your battles later.”
“So you ordered them to keep the Rionean Princess silent and for me to be confined to the palace.”
“Your father is dying. How could I bear to watch you throw away your chance when the throne is almost yours?”
“I am safe, mother. You let your worries get the better of you. How could they get rid of me, the only heir to the throne?”
“Don’t be too sure about that. You disappeared for four years, long enough for their weak minds to dither. They looked for faraway cousins of yours, and a lengthy list of stand-in heirs was the upshot. Lord Shusha alone has followed a different path, devoting himself to finding a way to treat Mapolos. He is a cunning man, Marcus. Beware!”
