He looked into her wide, concerned eyes and took her hand. ‘I saw him.’
Alyssa blinked slowly as she absorbed what he had just said. ‘You saw Goth?’
He nodded.
‘Could you have been mistaken?’ Her voice was small.
‘Goth is too distinctive to confuse with anyone else.’
‘Can someone corroborate this? Who else saw him?’
‘Only I from the Shield, though another did—’
They were disturbed by the valet who was carrying a tray with two drinks on it. ‘I thought you may enjoy sharing a cup with your visitor, Miss Alyssa.’ He bowed.
Alyssa smiled. ‘Koryn, how kind. Thank you, I am thirsty.’
The man bowed slightly again and left them.
Saxon looked into his cup. ‘Ale! You drink ale?’
‘Only old Koryn knows how much I love the stuff. I have a cup of it around midday when most of the palace is at their noon meal.’ She could not help a conspiratorial grin spreading across her face.
Saxon was pleased to see it. ‘Good health,’ he said.
Alyssa responded in kind and they both took a long draught of the ale.
Her face became serious again. ‘You were saying…about who else saw Goth…?’ she prompted.
‘Yes.’ He noticed how pale she looked. Could she take this news? But he was too far into this conversation to pull out now. ‘I saw Cloot watching him also.’
Although he had readied himself for some sort of reaction, he had not counted on such stillness.
‘Cloot?’ she whispered, as though hearing the name for the first time.
Saxon remained quiet.
‘And did he know you?’
‘He flew to me, Alyssa. See this scratch at my ear?’ She nodded. ‘He did this to warn me. He sat at my
shoulder and we watched the stracca den where Goth lay inside losing his senses.’
She looked at him without understanding.
He shrugged in his unique Kloekish way. ‘It’s a leaf. People smoke it. Very addictive. Dulls the mind like no liquor can.’
Alyssa nodded. ‘Tell me about Cloot.’
‘I believe he was there to track down Goth. He found him before I did. Perhaps, like me, he had worked out that Caradoon seemed just the sort of place where two lowlifes could hide for a while.’
Alyssa began to weep softly. ‘You’re sure?’
‘That it was Cloot? No other falcon would be so tame. He even managed to flap his wings in response to my questions. It was him all right.’
Alyssa wiped her eyes on her sleeve and composed herself. ‘That’s happy news then,’ she said finally. ‘And what of Goth? Is he a threat still?’
He took her in his arms and hugged her hard. He could see she needed to feel his strength and safety.
‘Sallementro and I are here to protect you, not to mention the Shield and the elite warriors of the King’s Guard. You have nothing to fear from Goth,’ he promised her. He felt like a traitor, for he did not believe a word of it. He cleared his throat. ‘I have to go back to Caradoon tomorrow.’
‘Again!’ She paused and sipped her drink before continuing. ‘You’re going to finish off Goth once and for all, aren’t you?’
‘No, sadly. I have to find Cloot. He was captured by traders and I fear he may already be off the mainland and on his way to the Exotic Isles.’
‘Why did you come back without killing Goth first?’
Saxon felt the guilt of his decision bite. ‘They beat me unconscious and drove me by cart far from Caradoon. When I came to, I realised I was closer to the main Shield group and you than to the pirate town. It made sense to return and give you this news.’
‘Goth is no longer your priority, is he?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.
He shook his head. ‘No, Alyssa. I am leaving Goth to Herek and his men. I must go in search of Cloot of the Paladin.’
They were not together much longer and spent what time there was talking about Gyl. Saxon took his leave soon afterwards, hugging Alyssa fiercely and promising to return with Tor’s falcon.
After he had left her, Alyssa returned to the King’s study, even more distracted than she had felt before she left it.
‘But I don’t know how to fight, Saxon. I am a musician!’
Saxon sighed. ‘Sallementro,’ he said heavily, ‘I am not asking you to fight. I am asking you to protect her. You are her second-bonded Paladin. You were not picked out by the gods for your vocal talent alone, exquisite though it may be.’
They both smiled. This was old ground; a path they had trodden many times before.
The musician spoke softly. ‘Yes, it is a notion I repeat to myself time and again. If I am one of the Paladin, then one must presume I have already suffered great pain to be here now.’
Saxon nodded gently. ‘You can be sure of it. This is your destiny. You and I are bonded to Alyssa and must give our lives for her. We are all blind in this, Sallementro. None of us knows what will occur. All we know is that we will do whatever we can to keep our charges safe. Now, I must go and find Cloot. He is in serious danger, I fear.’
‘I will keep her safe.’
Saxon touched Sallementro on the shoulder. ‘I know you will. And the boy—keep Gyl safe too.’
The two men embraced.
‘How long will you be gone?’
The Kloek shrugged. ‘I’m hoping to return swiftly but Cloot has been stolen from the mainland, which probably means a journey across the seas and who knows what awaits me there. The sun is high already; I must be gone. It will take me many days to get back to the north and there is weather closing in.’
Sallementro was about to say that he too had heard that grim weather was predicted for the coming days when the palace bells began to toll. Neither man had heard that ominous sound since the announcement of Torkyn Gynt’s execution. Without another word they began to run, joining the dozens of men, women and children who had emerged from
the palace and were rushing as fast as they could towards the main courtyard.
Gyl came careening down a flight of stairs and bundled straight into Saxon, knocking three or four others with him.
‘Strike me, lad!’ cursed Saxon.
Gyl began apologising to all and helped one of the cooks to her feet. Saxon looked back at the stairs and realised Gyl had jumped the entire flight. All that training was working.
Together the three men pushed through the crowd, Saxon first, strongly shouldering his way through to the front. Despite the numbers of people, a shocked silence hung over the courtyard.
Lying on the flagstones, her head supported by a folded cloak, was Queen Nyria. She was very still. Her skin looked waxen and a trickle of blood ran from behind her ear and soaked into the pale velvet of her cloak. The King was kneeling beside her, his face contorted with grief.
He looked up and stretched out his arms. ‘Won’t someone help her?’ he pleaded.
The King’s most loyal servant, Koryn, put his mottled, bony fingers on the King’s shoulders and squeezed gently. He whispered directly into the griefstricken man’s ear. ‘My liege, she has gone to the Light.’
Lorys roared aloud in his agony. He picked up the Queen’s limp body and pulled it to his chest. Now all in the yard could see just how drenched with blood her cloak was.
The Queen of Tallinor was surely dead.
No one moved. All were too shocked to speak. Then a lone voice called out and a woman pushed through the crowd. Saxon immediately recognised Alyssa’s voice and Gyl moved towards her just as she broke through and froze, taking in the ugly scene.
Weeping, she kneeled beside her King and her Queen, close enough to hear what the sovereign was mumbling over and over into Nyria’s bloodied ear.
‘I am punished for my sins,’ he wept.
Tal was in mourning. As they had done for centuries when a royal passed into the Light, the Tallinese shrouded their city in violet; the colour reserved for death. As a sign of respect, shopkeepers draped violet over their doorways, most of the houses had pennants of violet hanging from their windows and people stitched a patch of the colour onto their garments. Little girls even put the fresh flowers in their hair. The city, indeed the Kingdom, would wear the violet for two moon cycles.
The palace itself had descended into a frigid silence. Only essential duties were carried out and the kitchen prepared traditional mourning fare: bland and meagre. The palace occupants would eat this basic diet until the Queen’s body was cremated.
For three days and nights she would lie in state, laid out on a cold bed of stone in the chapel where
her subjects could bid their final farewells. Word of Nyria’s death had spread like fire and people descended in their hundreds on the capital. The King had released money to provide food for the many who had come from so far on so little to see their Queen for the last time.
And this was where Alyssa found herself, praying, watching, weeping with the Tallinese. She had tried to keep up the school hours but none of her pupils could concentrate. By the second morning she had given up, dismissed the two classes and sent the children back to their quarters. With Lorys shut up in his chambers, receiving no visitors, speaking to no one, she had nothing to do.
Gyl escaped the bleak days by volunteering to go into the hills with Herek and some of the King’s Guard for drills and training.
Saxon had left the city altogether. He had remained with her longer than he had wanted to and finally Alyssa had told him to be on his way. He could do nothing to help and she knew that the loss of Cloot cut him far deeper than the loss of a Queen. He had left yesterday and she had cried bitterly, wondering whether she would lose him too.
Only Sallementro remained close but he was so involved in preparing the music for her majesty’s funeral service that Alyssa could not count on his companionship right now. And so she sat alone in the shadows of the chapel and grieved, wondering what would happen to palace life now that it had lost its jewel.
She watched a young couple grieve at the sight of their dead Queen and she was reminded of the depth of grief she had felt at losing Tor. Alyssa had never thought she would fall in love again or feel the desire to hold her body close against a man and enjoy his touch. But Lorys had reawakened those feelings and she wept as she remembered, just a few moons ago, wishing the Queen did not exist and Lorys was hers.
And now the Queen was dead. That wish had been answered.
Alyssa hated herself.
She watched more and more people filing through the chapel, shocked and distraught. Many of them had seen their Queen in the flesh only a short time previous during the royal tour. Radiant and elegant as always, Nyria had touched their hearts and shown her joy at being amongst them. They had responded with love. And now her body lay cold before them.
It was faithful Herek who told Alyssa what had happened the day of the Queen’s death. As usual, he had taken the morning ride with his King and that particular day the Queen had decided to ride with them, as she often did. She had fainted during a gallop across the moors, had fallen from her fleet-footed horse, Freycin, and struck her head on a rock. A similar incident had occurred when Torkyn Gynt was under-physic at the palace, but that time Gynt had revitalised the Queen’s heart and saved her life. Whether the Queen’s heart had failed again, or whether it was the blow to her head which killed her, no one would ever know, but she was dead before
Herek and the King had dismounted and rushed to her side.
Herek confided to Alyssa how the King had screamed Nyria’s name for an hour or more. The Prime had not dared to suggest they return to the palace until Lorys had found some level of composure.
‘He suddenly stopped,’ Herek had said. ‘He mounted his stallion, asked for the Queen to be placed in his arms and then allowed the horse to lead them back to the palace at its own pace. Fortunately, I saw a stableboy walking one of the horses. I told him to hurry back to the palace with my order for the bells of alarm to be sounded.’
That was all Alyssa knew. She had yet to speak with the King since that morning when it seemed she was the last at the palace to discover the tragedy. She had busied herself since in making arrangements for the public cremation. Tallinese tradition demanded that the body be cremated within three days of death; beyond the fourth night it was believed that the soul of the dead would be unable to find the Light and would be doomed to forever roam in darkness.
Lorys would never risk this for his Queen. Nyria would be cremated on the third day.
Alyssa saw Lorys at the funereal feast although she still did not exchange a word with him. She could see that the King was gritting his teeth throughout the ceremony and he made an early departure.
Later, young Edwyd, the King’s page, brought her an unexpected message.
‘He has asked for me?’ she repeated, knowing it was foolish. That was what the boy had just said.
‘He wishes to see you now, Miss Alyssa,’ Edwyd repeated.
‘I shall tidy myself and come immediately,’ she said, standing.
Sallementro, who was singing a tragic love song to the gathering, looked over towards her. She shook her head and blew him a kiss. She would talk to him later.
Alyssa knocked softly at the main door to the
sovereign’s chambers. She was relieved to see Koryn open it. He was so old, wizened by Gyl’s standards, but Alyssa loved the great wisdom in his rheumy eyes. With Merkhud dead, Koryn was the last of the palace staff who had served under old King Mort and who had known Lorys as a child.
He welcomed her kindly and pointed towards the salon. ‘I am sure the King thanks you for coming at this late hour, Miss Alyssa,’ he said graciously and offered to pour her a glass of wine.
Alyssa did not really want wine. Her stomach was churning at this unexpected invitation.
‘Here you are, Miss.’ He passed her the goblet anyway.
‘Oh, Koryn, I’m just trying to come to terms with today.’ She mustered a smile for the gentle man who stood in front of her. ‘How is the King?’
He sighed gently. ‘It will take time but you know him: his mind never stops and now that the official part is over, he knows he must get on with running his Kingdom. With him being away on the tour and then this…well.’ He shrugged.
‘I understand,’ Alyssa said. She sipped her wine politely. ‘Are we to work?’
‘I don’t believe so. I think he might just appreciate some company, Miss Alyssa.’ His last few words were whispered for Lorys strode into the room.
Alyssa stood, feeling nervous. Lorys was freshly bathed and droplets of water still clung to his beard and hair. His dark violet shirt was carelessly open and she could see his broad muscled chest beneath. She
put down the beautiful glass goblet quickly. It was either that or break it with her grip.
All the feelings she thought she had put aside came flooding back. He was beautiful. So much older than her and yet he was truly irresistible. His grief just made him more vulnerable, more desirable. She wanted to run but found a shaky smile as he looked at her briefly before addressing his valet.
‘Thank you, Koryn, for your help today. Please, have an early night. I will not be requiring anything more this evening.’
Koryn bowed to his sovereign and departed. Drake, the King’s huge hound, escorted him to the door. The old man was quite used to this ritual and even wished the dog a very good night.
Alyssa’s mind was racing. What should she say? How should she act?
‘Thank you for coming, Alyssa,’ the King said suddenly.
She jumped.
‘Are you well?’ he asked, noticing how startled she seemed.
‘I…I…it’s been a very long day, your majesty. My apologies. I imagine you must be feeling it more than any of us.’
She wished she could bite her own tongue out. What a stupid thing to say. He had not seemed to notice, though, and was pouring himself a goblet of wine. He asked her to sit. A small fire had been lit in the room, making it cosy. The nights were certainly cooler now and Alyssa’s mind shifted briefly to
Saxon, wondering how he might be faring in the north as winter closed in.
Lorys was never one for small talk. ‘I wish to discuss Gyl,’ he said.
The topic was so unexpected that she swallowed her wine the wrong way in her surprise and began to cough.
‘Light, woman, what is wrong with you tonight? You are so jumpy.’ He leapt up to help.
‘No, sire, I’m fine. Please…I’m just not used to the wine. I got out of the habit whilst you were abroad,’ she spluttered.
It was a poor attempt at deflection but it stopped him pounding her on the back or, even more terrifying, sitting next to her.
‘Alyssa, this is pure mother’s milk. It is called Morache. You should savour its gentle sweetness. Such an elegant wine, the result of a loving first press from that tiny green grape which grows on the hillsides of Arandon. I chose it especially for you.’
She could not help but feel touched, even amused. ‘Thank you, sire. I like it very much—or at least I will as soon as I swallow it properly.’
‘Call me Lorys, Alyssa. We are not working now.’
Dangerous, she told herself. ‘Um…you said you wanted to talk to me about Gyl, my lord?’
Lorys sighed at her formality. ‘Yes…yes, I did. I have decided that the lad is to be elevated to a new position. Under-Prime will put him just one rank below Prime Herek. He is to be groomed for the top job.’
Alyssa stood. ‘But, sire, that’s ridiculous!’
When the King shot her a tired look over the top of his goblet, she gathered her wits. ‘Oh, my apologies to speak so plainly, my lord, but Gyl has just turned fifteen summers. You cannot expect the soldiers to take him seriously?’
Lorys opened his mouth to respond but Alyssa had begun to pace and continued talking.
‘They will make a mockery of him. The men of the Shield can be cruel on a lad, sire. They consider it their duty to turn him into a man and I have seen them torture him—all good-naturedly of course—but torture nonetheless. He takes it in the very best of spirits and always returns for more but it troubles me. He is the only boy of that age in the garrison…he’s just too young.’
She looked at Lorys imploringly.
‘He is no longer a boy, Alyssa. He is a man. Young, yes, but a man all the same. I was being groomed to run the Kingdom by the time I was twelve. I was crowned King when I was not yet seventeen.’
‘Yes, and no doubt there was a veritable circus of people teaching you how, your majesty. This child was abandoned at twelve. He has learned to fit into this life at the palace but he was not born to it as you were.’
The King sipped his wine and said casually, ‘And how would you know what he was born to?’
That confused Alyssa. ‘Sire, your own good wife, the Queen, found him chained to the palace gates. He was left there by his mother. Is that the action of a high-born woman?’
‘No. But you have no idea of his background.’
‘And you do?’ Her ire was up now. King or no King, she would not see Gyl harmed in any way.
‘As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve made it my business to find out more. Surely you grasped when you met him that he was an educated child. He could read, write, do sums. He has a ready wit and manners most gentle. This is no child of gypsies. Has that never piqued your curiosity?’
It had raided her thoughts for the first few years they had spent together. These days she forced all thoughts of his early life to the back of her mind and locked them away. She wanted nothing to do with them. Gyl was her son. He was hers.
‘I don’t dwell on it, your majesty,’ she answered tersely.
‘Well, let me assure you that Gyl comes from a very good home.’ It was clear Alyssa did not want to listen but Lorys pushed on. ‘His father was not known to him but his mother—a good woman who, incidentally, brought him to the palace gates because she knew she was soon to die—did her best to give him an excellent education. She worked hard for this because his father, so I am told, was of noble birth.’
Dangerous territory now. He took a big swallow of his wine.
‘Who is the father, sire?’
‘There are rumours.’
‘How can you be sure they are true?’
‘Because older members of the palace staff supported them.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as Merkhud. Why are you so tiresome?’ he said, frustrated by her cross-examination.
Alyssa boiled over. ‘Because I’m his mother!’
Now Lorys’s temper flashed. He spoke without thinking. ‘You are not his mother, Alyssa! You are merely his guardian. But I am his…’
He didn’t finish.
Alyssa crumpled. The wine had made her emotional and now the dream which she had woven around herself these past few years had been smashed by Lorys’s harsh words. Of course Gyl was not her son and she was not his mother. Her son was dead. His body lay decaying on the forest floor.
And so was his father: Torkyn Gynt, the Kingdom’s finest physician and its greatest sorcerer. A man who had gone to his death with greater nobility than any of the courtiers who swanned around the palace. He should never have been executed. He would not have been, were it not for this man in front of her. The man who was staring at her with such compassion and regret. The man who had ordered her husband’s barbaric execution.
Alyssa screamed aloud. The horror came flooding back. All the old demons raged forth to haunt her once again. She struck out at the man responsible for it all. Punching and slapping, she felt each blow land on his flesh and she hated him for not stopping her. Instead, he stood there sadly and took her punishment.
Finally her rage calmed and she slid to the floor. Her breath came in ragged starts and she could hear
that Lorys too was breathing deeply. Had she made a great deal of noise? She could not hear running in the hallways or knocking at the door. Only the dog seemed to have responded; he was taking a greater than usual interest in her, licking at the tears on her face.
‘Go on with you, Drake,’ she heard the King say.
The hound loped off and she felt the King’s strong hands beneath her arms as he lifted her up to face him. His face was bleeding from a scratch on one cheek and the other cheekbone looked puffy. His shirt was ripped, revealing even more of the body she longed to touch. Alyssa felt sick.
‘You should box for one of the Shield teams,’ Lorys said.
At that she began to cry. What a hopeless, horrible situation.
‘Remind me not to try again to make you laugh with my scintillating wit.’
‘Sire, you are wounded,’ she said, staring through her tears at his face.
‘Just a scratch and deserved. I am sorry, Alyssa. Truly, deeply sorry. I had no right to throw that in your face. You are a wonderful mother to Gyl and he is a lucky boy to have you in his life.’
They were standing too close. He took her hand and held it against his bare chest. Alyssa could feel her own heart banging loudly, or was it his heartbeat she could feel against her palm? She did not know but she did not want it to end. She wanted to throw her whole self against his naked chest and cry her tears. Cry for Gyl and for Tor, for Saxon and Cloot, for the
tragic loss of Nyria and for her own doomed love for the King.
‘Will you forgive me?’ he said tenderly.
‘Only if you will let me see to that wound.’
He nodded.
Alyssa reluctantly pulled away from his hold and cleaned up her face with her kerchief, which she moistened in some water from the jug. Then she called to the page, who, mercifully, was asleep outside and had missed the noise. Thankfully the King refused to have his chambers guarded or they would have had ten men banging on the doors by now.
‘Edwyd, fetch my herbals basket from my chambers. Gyl will show you. Hurry, lad. After you’ve returned you may leave for your night’s rest.’
The page scurried off. Inside once again, she politely asked the King to sit down and poured him another goblet of wine. She could feel his eyes following her every move but she refused to look at him.
Alyssa was grateful that Edwyd returned quickly with her basket. Closing the door on him, she asked Lorys to lean his head back so she could inspect the wound. She had to sit next to him to clean it with a mixture of washes she had made herself only a few days earlier. They were so fresh and stringent that they made him wince but she knew their application would ensure no infection occurred there. Another trick learned from Sorrel: infection kills, so kill it first.
‘I’m sorry to hurt you more, sire.’
Lorys sighed. ‘Looking at you, having you so close and being unable to tell you how my heart longs for you hurts much, much more.’
Alyssa stopped her ministrations. Their faces were just inches apart.
‘My lord, you must not speak so,’ she whispered.
The King sat up and took her hands in his. ‘But I must, Alyssa. Or I will go mad from the pain. I love you. I have loved you since the day I saw you in the throne room, wan and filled with despair. You were beautiful in your dignity at the execution of Gynt and though I cannot heal that wound for you, I can beg your forgiveness.
‘I could have stayed the execution but I was already too enamoured of you. Too jealous of him for having felt your body beneath his. I wanted no man to have you if I could not. I have been demented these years at having you near. It takes all my courage sometimes to stop myself from reaching out and stroking your hair as we work—’
‘My lord, please. The Queen’s ashes are still warm,’ Alyssa cried.
‘Hush, Alyssa. The Queen knew.’
From the table next to him, he lifted a piece of parchment. Alyssa could see immediately that it was inscribed with the Queen’s hand.
He continued as he unrolled it fully. ‘She wrote this several days before her death; the day we returned from the royal tour. In it she thanks me,’ he barked a sad laugh, ‘for being so attentive and loving to her during the Kingdom-wide visit.
‘I will not read it all to you, but she admits to knowing how unhappy my nights were during that time and further suggests that I was yearning for something. She writes that I was yearning for the company of Alyssandra Qyn. She says that I am not to feel badly because of this. She blesses any relationship that we may have after her death, which she seemed to know was close.’
He paused. It was upsetting for him to read it again, though Alyssa could see the parchment had already been fingered and read many times. She passed him the wine and he drank the rest of his goblet.
‘I must finish this. She hopes that I will consider making you my Queen for she believes that you and I will form the perfect union for a Kingdom that is facing trouble. I do not know what she means by that, but on the morning of our ride—the day she died—she told me that she had dreamed of a woman who told her that Tallinor would face much danger in years to come and it would need strength at its helm to navigate those challenging times. According to Nyria, the woman told her that you are critical to the Kingdom and that Gyl must be Prime.’