The Ippos King: Wraith Kings Book Three

by Draven, Grace

  “Don't be ridiculous,” Ildiko replied. “I'm washing hair, not scrubbing floors. Besides, I don't want you terrorizing the servants with all the glaring and scowling and snarling.”

  While Ildiko might not have been scrubbing floors, she set to scrubbing Anhuset's head with the same zeal until the strands squeaked when finger-combed and her scalp stung. Anhuset remained undecided if she'd just been groomed or tortured. It was a far cry from the leisurely washing and combing Serovek had given her.

  “Done!” Ildiko finally, blessedly pronounced and handed Anhuset a comb and a towel. “You can finish the rest.”

  Anhuset held both and stared at Brishen's wife, wondering why she'd forgotten that this weak, human woman was the same one who once bludgeoned a Kai assassin to death with a shutter pole. “This is revenge for all the bruises I left on you during our sparring sessions, isn't it?”

  Ildiko's laughter didn't persuade her otherwise. “If I wanted revenge, Anhuset, I would have sent you a plate full of roasted potatoes for your dinner and lied by saying that Brishen ordered you to eat them.”

  “Like he did at your wedding.” Anhuset still hadn't forgiven him for pulling rank in that manner.

  “Just so.” Ildiko walked to the door, her shoes making wet, squeaking sounds on the floor from being splashed. She paused with her hand on the handle and turned back to give Anhuset a long look. Any amusement had fled her expression. “What is Serovek to you now, Anhuset?”

  Everything.

  The word thundered in Anhuset's mind, and for a moment the world shifted beneath her feet before she steadied herself and returned Ildiko's stare with a guarded one of her own. “He is Lord Pangion, hercegesé,” she said in an indifferent voice. “Beladine margrave of High Salure and friend to the herceges.”

  Ildiko's gaze didn't waver for long, excruciating moments. A tiny smile flitted across her lips. “I thought so.” She opened the door, closing it behind her with a quiet click.

  Anhuset stared at the door for a long time while water dripped from her skin and hair to puddle at her feet. She finally toweled off, combed out her hair and dug through her chest of clothes until she found what she wanted—sturdy tunic and trousers, a padded hauberk and riding leathers. The first two she'd wear now as she met with Brishen. She'd don the hauberk and leathers before she left for Timsiora. The servants had also delivered her worn travel satchel to which she added on change of garments in case the others weren't fit to wear by the time she reached the Beladine capital.

  A servant, waiting in the corridor, instructed her to meet the herceges in the library. Anhuset climbed the rest of the stairwell to the third floor where the knowledge amassed by previous Kai kings was stored in a room nearly as big as the great hall, with tall windows that looked onto the redoubt below and the lands beyond that fell under Saggara's protection.

  She expected to find both Brishen and Ildiko there, but only Brishen waited for her, his back to her as he stared out the windows. “Herceges,” she said, announcing her presence and bowed when he turned.

  He motioned for her to join him at the windows. A small table and chair were nearby, the table's surface covered with unfurled scrolls. Brishen pointed to them. “Beladine law, or at least as it was when those scrolls were added to this library. I don't think much has changed since then.”

  She drew closer to the table to peer at the scrolls, reading what was surely the dullest accounting of anything ever written and pitying Brishen for having to make sense of it. “What did you find?”

  His brow furrowed, whether from concentration or concern, she couldn't tell. “A way to save the margrave if you can't convince the king of his innocence. You may still have to employ it even if you do convince him, and from what I know of Rodan, I wouldn't be surprised if he forced you to do just that.” His frown deepened. “It's dangerous, cousin.”

  Every time he addressed her by their familial ties, he revealed his worry for her. “What is it?”

  “According to Beladine law, the accused has two choices – stand trial before the king, in which witnesses to his guilt or innocence plead their case and the king decrees final judgment or the accused may name a champion to fight for him. If the champion wins, the accused will be declared innocent. If he loses, the accused is declared guilty, no matter the testimony witnesses.” The corners of Brishen's mouth turned down. “It's a fight to the death.”

  Anhuset swayed, lightheaded from relief. She could act as Serovek's champion. Diplomacy was not her strength unless it was practiced with a weapon instead of words. She had everything to lose or everything to gain in such a scenario. She didn't even have to think twice. “I'll get my things.”

  She'd pivoted for the door when Brishen snapped out, “Wait.” He set his hip against the table's edge, the casual pose belying his troubled gaze. “If only it were so easy to send sha-Anhuset in to wipe the floor with an adversary and emerge the victor.”

  Her triumph was momentary, defeated by his enigmatic statement. “What else, Brishen?” A sudden thought occurred to her. “I can't go without your leave. Do I have it?”

  He blinked, obviously taken by surprise at her question. “What?” He shook his head. “That's of no importance.”

  “It's of every importance, Your Highness.” She wielded the most formal of addresses to impress upon him the importance of his approval, how it went against everything she'd adhered to as a sha. He was her cousin, yes, but he was her liege.

  Brishen sighed. “Of course you have it. I leave all but one choice in this matter up to you.” Her stomach somersaulted as relief washed through her, though she held her breath waiting to hear what the one choice was. “When you go, you go as Anhuset, not sha-Anhuset. You will not stand before Rodan as the second of the Khaskem, as an ambassador for the queen regnant or a representative of Bast-Haradis. You go as a Kai woman who just so happens to be a friend of Serovek and a witness to his actions during the journey to the Nazim monastery in the Lobak valley. Anything else will look like the meddling of a foreign power in the affairs of the Beladine nation, and that has all the elements for inciting a war.” His features saddened. “Serovek Pangion is my friend and my battle brother, but Bast-Haradis has sacrificed enough, suffered enough. I won't send it into a war for one man, not even him. It's on you alone, Anhuset.”

  Why he thought she might balk at such restrictions or the heavy weight of such a responsibility, she didn't know and groaned inwardly when he said, “One more thing, and this will be your greatest challenge in this endeavor.”

  As if facing King Rodan and winning a fight to the death while in a human kingdom wasn't challenge enough.

  “A victory in an arena will guarantee a single reprieve for a single instance. I doubt Rodan believes a word Bryzant has told him about Serovek allying himself with an insurrectionist like Chamtivos. He could raise a rebellion of his own at any time if he wanted to without help from a backwater cur like that. Bryzant gave Rodan what he was looking for: an excuse to get rid of a perceived threat that wouldn't outrage his people over the execution of a man who'd helped save them all.”

  Dread darkened her hope. “If I win, the king will simply find another way to arrest him again. There will be no trial. No second chances.” It was a grim consideration, one she couldn't dwell on. Her purpose was to just help him survive this imprisonment and pray another wasn't forthcoming later.

  Brishen nodded. “Serovek is a threat because he's a viable usurper who could win support among Rodan's restless nobles. He's from a respected Beladine family; he's wealthy, and he's proven himself an exceptional fighter. His rise would raise benefit other powerful families through popularity, money, and heirs. He's the stuff bards weave tales from when they speak of heroes. Men of great place.”

  “He doesn't want any of that.”

  “We know it, but we're not the ones who need convincing. Serovek has to be diminished, become lesser in the eyes of the Beladine people and therefore no longer a threat to their king.” Brishen paused, frow
ning as if searching for the right words. His hesitation tightened the knot of trepidation in Anhuset's belly. “The Anhuset who left Saggara to journey with Serovek Pangion isn't the same Anhuset who returned. Ildiko saw it. So did I. You love the margrave enough to willingly—eagerly—act his champion in a fight to the death. Do you love him enough to marry him?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Popularity had its pitfalls.

  The prison known as the Zela housed every manner of criminal, from the debtor to the murderer, the thief and the traitor alike. It wasn't the crime that determined where in the Zela one was incarcerated but the status of the criminal. A troop of palace guards had turned Serovek over to the warden and his men with instructions that he be put in a cell on the topmost floor.

  This one lacked the comforts most Beladine nobility was accustomed to, but it had a chair and table and a bed that looked free of fleas. The sliver of window set high in the wall allowed in a small bit of light and a great deal of cold wind. There were no tapestries or rugs to warm the cell, and the blankets folded on the bed looked threadbare. Serovek was thankful he wore heavy clothing to ward off the worst of the chill.

  The warden blew on his fingers before tucking his hands under his arms. He peered at Serovek from the other side of the cell bars. “Never thought to have the margrave of High Salure as my guest here at the Zela,” he said. There was genuine puzzlement in his voice instead of mockery, and even a touch of disappointment.

  “Home it is not,” Serovek replied, keeping his answers noncommittal. Everything he to anyone in this place would be immediately reported back to the king. He didn't believe a word of Rodan's statement that he would take time to consider Serovek's guilt or innocence. It didn't matter which he was. What mattered to Rodan was the possibility of his margrave usurping his throne and how best to neutralize that threat. This little interlude of hospitality was just his way of making Serovek stew, to increase his fear and panic. At the moment, all it did was stir the deep-seated fury burning hot enough inside him to make him sweat despite the cold. Too bad his steward wasn't in here with him right now. Serovek would cheerfully tear off Bryzant's arms and beat him to death with both.

  “Prisoners are given dinner in an hour,” the warden said. “And being who you are, you can have visitors, though they stay on this side of the bars. Is there anyone you want to see?”

  Serovek almost declined, then changed his mind. “A king's chronicler,” he said. “There's one I've spoken with before. Jahna Uhlfrida. If she isn't available, then another will do.”

  He'd manage to find a way out of this disaster with his head still attached to his shoulders and High Salure returned to him. Serovek had watched Rodan's expressions while he read Bryzant's letter. Mocking disbelief, contempt—each expression flickering across the king's face as he read aloud. If there was to be a true trial, then it wouldn't be so much a matter of convincing the king of his innocence but of convincing him of his loyalty and disinterest in the throne. By his estimation, he had three days at most to plan what he'd say. In that time, he'd make use of the Archives and their purpose in chronicling major events in the Beladine kingdom to recount his journey to the Lobak valley and the death of Chamtivos.

  The idea hadn't occurred to him until he considered how he might get a message to Anhuset. Not a plea for rescue but a note of reassurance that he was still alive, not to worry, and to take care of Magas. Serovek smiled as he imaged her scoffing at reading such pap. He could only assume she and Erostis had successfully made it to Saggara and warned Brishen. As Serovek Pangion, his death would be meaningless, just another criminal put to death at the king's pleasure. As margrave of High Salure though, his death would have an impact on the stability of the hinterlands and Bast-Haradis that bordered them. He had no doubt both King Rodan and the Khaskem were very aware of that and likely why Rodan had been quick to arrest but slow to condemn him.

  As the warden had noted earlier when he first arrived, a prison guard brought dinner, sliding the tray through a narrow slot at floor level that didn't require opening the cell door to hand him his meal. The cell bars themselves were narrow, allowing a half hand's span of room between them but that was all. While the bars offered no privacy, Serovek was glad they weren't the doors set into the stone walls, with only a spyhole in the wood for a guard to check on a prisoner, if they even remembered to do so. Those were tombs.

  His meal was plain, tasteless fare, and an hour later he remembered nothing about it. Other less hardy noblemen incarcerated like him might complain, but he'd had worse and less. At least, based on the fact he was still standing and not writhing on the floor in pain and foaming at the mouth, it wasn't poisoned.

  He'd just shoved the empty tray back through the slot to be retrieved by another guard or servant when approaching footsteps—one in heavy boots, the other, soft shoes—alerted him that he had another visitor. When they finally came into view, he was surprised to see an old woman of queenly bearing accompanying a guard. At Serovek's cell, the guard bowed to her and retreated to a spot where he could see—and hear—the visitor.

  Serovek didn't know her, but he recognized the insignia on her heavy cloak and the concealing headdress that covered her from the top of her head to her shoulders, leaving only her lined face bare. Her sunken cheeks were ruddy with the cold and her eyes as sharp as any hawk's. A dame of the Archives.

  She stood close to the bars, watching him in silence as he came toward her, her gaze measuring as it swept him from head to food. “Lord Pangion,” she said. “I am Dame Stalt. A messenger arrived at the Archives. We don't usually receive requests for an audience from the Zela.”

  He offered a brief salute. “Madam, I expected a chronicler, not one of the exalted dames herself.”

  One faded eyebrow rose and her lips twitched at the corners. “I admit to the failing of too much curiosity, though it's a necessary one considering what I do. Of the nobles who've passed the hours in this place, I never expected to find one of the men who fought the galla doing so.”

  The warden had said something similar. At least people acted surprised instead of expectant to find him here. “A remark I imagine I'll hear many times over the next few days. I'm sure I'll echo the refrain of every person in the Zela when I say I'm innocent of the charges.” He gestured to the bars. “I'd invite you in and order wine or ale, but as you see, there are restrictions.”

  Her expression told him she was aware of his attempt at charm and utterly immune to it. In a small way she reminded him of Anhuset. “How may I be of service to you, Lord Pangion?”

  “While I recognize the honor of your presence here, I asked for Jahna Uhlfrida.”

  Dame Stalt's expression softened at the edges. “Ah, Jahna. Lady Uhlfrida is Lady Velus now, wife of an Ilinfan swordmaster. She no longer abides here in Timsiora though she remains a chronicler.”

  Serovek had found Jahna intelligent, engaging, and lit with an inner glow that bespoke a love of knowledge. The news of her marriage gladdened him. Among the many unable to look beyond the birthmark staining her cheek and neck like a splash of red wine, an Ilinfan swordmaster had seen a beauty of both flesh and spirit and claimed her as his wife. “My congratulations to her. I wish her well. I received a copy of her chronicles based on our meeting. Very good work. She was detailed, and most important, accurate without unnecessary embellishment.”

  The dame nodded. “She's one of our best chroniclers. However, as she's not here, you'll have to make do with me.”

  He was perfectly happy with the substitution, and this was a dame with a certain power even the nobles didn't possess and of which all kings were made wary: the ability to frame history in their records according to their own biases. “As you've recorded the events of the galla war, are you interested in any of the aftermath?”

  “Of course,” she said with a shrug.

  “I can recount the journey I and others took to the Jeden Order to deliver the body of the Wraith king and Nazim monk Megiddo Cermak. It might seem a
journey like any other but the warlord Chamtivos died during this excursion, and it's why I'm here now.”

  A shrewd look replaced her curious one. “You wish to record your innocence.”

  “I wish to record facts.” No doubt Bryzant was trying to spread rumor far and wide of Serovek's supposed misdeeds. Serovek wanted what really occurred recorded where it counted most.

  “You understand King Rodan may request to see any and all notes and that I'm bound to turn them over to him?”

  “Yes.” She might consider it her duty to turn over all written items to Rodan for review if asked, but he had no doubt there were things written and recorded and hidden away for later generations that current sovereigns would prefer no one knew. If he didn't survive Rodan's paranoia, his own accounts of the truth and his innocence just might.

  Dame Stalt regarded him for several moments, her gaze direct, piercing. “I'm an old woman, Lord Pangion,” she finally said. “And the cold here is hard on my bones. My chroniclers are also very busy with assignments already given. However, I can provide you with ink and quill and as much parchment as you need to write down an account of your trip. I'll request that a small brazier be delivered to you as well, so the ink doesn't thicken too much and your hands stay warm enough to keep your writing legible. I will send someone to the Zela twice a day to take what you've completed. Will this suffice?”

  He hadn't expected that level of generosity and offered her a low bow. “Very much so. I thank you, Dame.”

  She returned the bow with a brief nod. “It's well-known the Beladine hinterlands thrive under the guardianship of High Salure. May it continue, margrave.” Supportive words carefully framed to given appearance of neutrality.

  “May the gods favor it so, Madam.”

  When she left, he restlessly paced the room. Until someone returned from the Archives, there wasn't much to do but worry, recall, or wonder, and he did all three—not about himself but about Anhuset and Erostis. Had they made it to Saggara without delays or problems? Was Magas being taken care of? Those questions and concerns birthed others—the fate of High Salure and those soldiers who considered themselves loyal to him more than to the crown. If they had any fear for their own skins, they would declare loyalty to Rodan, even if they had to lie through their teeth.