“I’m glad.” Lyrna straightened on her pillow, offering Sollis a gracious smile through the flames. “And you, brother. I would greatly appreciate your opinion of this tale, I call it the Legend of the One-Eyed Man.”
His pale eyes betrayed nothing. “Of course, Highness.”
She paused for a moment to modulate her breathing. She had been trained in oratory, at her own insistence, since her father regarded the art with a measure of disdain; he always did prefer speaking in private. “Over ten years ago,” she began, “in the city we call Varinshold, a man rose to claim lordship over all the outlaws in the city.”
Davoka squinted at her. “Outlaw?”
“Varnish,” Sollis said. Exile, without clan, worthless, thief or scum, depending on the inflection.
“Ahh.” She nodded. “Go on, Queen.”
“This man had always been of vicious temperament,” Lyrna continued. “Given to foul acts of theft, murder and rape, of both boys and maids it’s said. His viciousness was such that all the other outlaws feared him to the extent that they would pay him to be left in peace. But one young thief wouldn’t pay, a young thief with a keen eye and a knife, just like mine.” She held up the throwing knife, gleaming red in the firelight. “And that young thief put his knife into the lord outlaw’s eye. He lingered for days in great pain, thrashing and wailing, and then succumbed to a sleep so deep his minions thought him dead and began to wrap him in canvas in preparation for dumping in the deepest part of the harbour, for such is the resting place of most outlaws in Varinshold. But death hadn’t claimed him, he rose again this lord of outlaws, to be known for ever more as One Eye.
“His anger was great, terrible acts were committed in his name as he sought the young thief, finding to his rage the boy had become a brother of the Sixth Order, and therefore beyond his reach, for now. And here is where the story becomes strange, for it’s said the loss of his eye had birthed in him a great power, a Dark power.”
“Dark?” Davoka asked.
“Rova kha ertah Mahlessa,” Sollis told her. That which is known only to the Mahlessa, the High Priestess.
The Lonak woman got to her feet. “I can hear no more of this,” she stated, avoiding Lyrna’s gaze and stalking away into the darkness.
“It’s a thing they don’t talk of, Highness,” Sollis explained. “To voice a thing gives it substance. They prefer the Dark to have no substance.”
“I see.” Lyrna wrapped her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “Well, it seems I am left with an audience of one for my story.”
“I’ve heard it before. A one-eyed man with the power to bind others with his will alone. It’s nonsense.” Sollis got to his feet, hefting his bow. “I have the first watch, by your leave, Highness.” He gave a precisely correct bow and walked away.
“How does it end, Highness?” Nersa asked, huddled at the entrance to her own tent, her face a pale oval in fox fur. “What happened to the one-eyed man?”
“Oh, they say he died a predictably ugly death. Slain by the Sixth Order in the bowels of the city.” Lyrna went to her own tent. “Best get some rest, Nersa. I doubt tomorrow will be any easier than today.”
“Yes, Highness. Sleep well.”
Sleep well. Any sleep would have been welcome, troubled, dream-filled, fitful, she didn’t care. Any release from this restless squirming in her cage of furs as she stared at the weave of the canvas over her head. A stiff northerly wind was ruffling the tent walls, making them snap and thrum in a most aggravating manner. But it wasn’t this that kept her from sleep, nor had it been for the past five years. Every night! she raged. Even here in this chilled waste, after so many miles on that blasted horse.
It was always the same, every night she would lie abed waiting for sleep, but it wouldn’t come, not until she had spent most of the night hours awash in memory and sheer exhaustion dragged her mind into slumber. Despite the nightly trial she never sought out a healer for a sleeping draught, never partook of wine to excess or dulled her senses with redflower. She hated it, this torment, but she accepted it. It was her due after all.
The memory became clearer when her mind had lost enough sensation of the world beyond her body to give its vision clarity, but not enough to bring the gift of sleep. The old man in the bed, so old, so sunken into age and regret, barely recognisable as her father, barely believable as a king.
She stood in the doorway to his bedchamber, a scroll clutched in her hand, the seal broken. The Alpiran Emperor had done them the courtesy of having it penned in Realm Tongue. The old man’s eyes tracked from her face to the scroll. He waved an irritated hand at the physicians surrounding the bed, a harsh bark coming from his throat, louder than she would have thought him capable. The physicians fled.
The old man’s skeletal claw beckoned to her and she came forward to kneel at his bedside. The voice that came from his throat was a dry rasp, but quick, the words clear. “So that’s it, is it?”
Lyrna placed the scroll on the bed. “Would you like me to read it?”
“Caahh!” he snarled, hand twitching. “Know what it says. No point. They want the boy. They want the Hope Killer.”
She looked down at the scroll, the neat precise text, beautifully scribed. “Yes, in return for Malcius. He’s alive, Father.”
“’Course he is, curses never die.”
Lyrna closed her eyes tight. “Father, please . . .”
“That’s all? Just the boy?”
“His men can leave. They ask for no reparations, no tribute. Just him.”
There was no sound save for the old man’s laboured breathing, like a dry rope dragged through an ungreased block. Lyrna looked up, meeting his eyes, fierce and bright enough to tell her he was still in there, still scheming away in his prison of age and illness. “No,” he said.
“Father, I beg you . . .”
“No!” The shout brought a fit of coughing, doubling him over in the bed. He was so thin and wasted she feared he might snap.
“Father . . .” She tried to ease him back onto the pillow but he shrugged her off.
“You tell them no, daughter!” His eyes blazed at her, blood staining his lips and chin as he drew air into his lungs in painful gulps. “I did not do all this . . . to be thwarted now. You will send the Alpiran ambassador home . . . with a refusal and a statement of our rightful claim to the ports . . . Then you will send the remaining fleet . . . to Linesh with orders for Al Sorna to embark himself and his army . . . They are to return to the Realm with all dispatch . . . When I die, as I surely must before long . . . You will wed him as consort and ascend to the throne . . .”
“My brother . . .”
“Your brother is a waste of my blood!” He thrashed at her, lunging across the bed. “Do you think I have worked . . . for all these years to bequeath my Realm . . . to a fool who’ll see it in ruins within a decade!” The cough took him again, wracking him, blood misting the bedcovers. Lyrna turned to call for the physicians but his claw-hand snared her wrist. For all his age and infirmity he still had a warrior’s grip. “The war, Lyrna . . .” he said, fierce eyes softer now, imploring, “. . . the Realm Guard shattered, the treasury emptied . . . All for you to make it right, rebuild, be the saviour of this Realm. All for you . . .”
Revulsion engulfed her then, making her flesh burn where he touched her. She tore her wrist away, retreating as he continued to beg, blood now streaming from his mouth. “Please, Lyrna . . . all for you.”
She stood in silence as he raged and flailed, until it seemed all the blood in him had stained the bedclothes and he lay spent and twitching, no more words coming from his hateful mouth. She swallowed, waited until his eyes were closed, until his chest had slowed to little more than a tremor. “Good sirs!” she called, making her voice as shrill with alarm as she could. “Good sirs, the King!”
The physicians returned in a flurry of robes and panic, flocking around the bed like crows around a perished horse. “Do all you can, good sirs!” she implored them. After another half hour of fussing one of the physicians came forward and bowed.
“Sir?” she enquired, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Highness, he has slipped into the final sleep. He will be with the Departed before the sun rises.” He sank to one knee before her, the others following suit.
She closed her eyes, letting the final tear fall, knowing it would be the last she would ever shed for her father. “Thank you, sir. Please see to his comfort.”
She retrieved the scroll and walked from the chamber. The Alpiran ambassador was seated where she had left him, on a bench in the main courtyard. It was a full moon and the marble paving stones were painted a pale blue, the pillars casting deep shadows.
“My lord Velsus,” she greeted him.
Lord Velsus, a tall black-skinned man in a simple robe of blue and white, returned the bow. “Highness. What word from your father?”
She clutched the scroll tight, feeling the parchment crack, ruining the fine calligraphy it held. “King Janus Al Nieren finds your proposal acceptable.”
She knew she was dreaming now, the blue of the moonlight too bright, Lord Velsus’s eyes too mocking as he bowed, then lunged forward to clamp his hand over her mouth . . .