Authors: Deborah Chester
Yet even as these
sensible thoughts crossed her mind, she felt a sense of urgency drawing her
onward to Imperia.
She wiped tears
from her face, then tiptoed from the room.
Outside in the
antechamber, she paused a moment to draw in deep breaths, trying to clear her lungs
of the sickroom smell. While she was questioning the physicians, Lady Lyticia
returned.
The woman
curtsied, looking eager. “Majesty—”
Annoyed by the
interruption, Elandra ignored her. “Can nothing else be tried?” she asked the
chief physician.
He frowned,
clearly put out by having his methods questioned. “It is not a matter of—”
“Majesty—”
In the palace,
such impertinence would have been dealt with summarily on her behalf, but now
Elandra had to personally put this provincial nobody in her place.
“Excuse me,” she
said to the physician, who bowed.
She turned on Lady
Lyticia with a glacial look that did not seem to deter the woman at all.
“Majesty,” she
said, “there is a lady who wishes to—”
“You have not been
acknowledged,” Elandra broke in, and her tone sent color surging into the
woman’s cheeks. “How dare you approach me without leave? How dare you interrupt
my conversation?”
Lady Lyticia’s
eyes grew very bright, and her mouth trembled a moment. She cast a swift glance
around at the watching physicians and guards and tossed her head.
“Forgive me,
Majesty,” she said in a tight little voice. “I thought my position as the wife
of—”
“Your husband does
not own my father’s estates yet,” Elandra snapped.
“In the emperor’s
absence,
we
represent—”
Everything inside
Elandra froze. She stared at the woman and had never been so angry before. Rage
thundered in her ears, and her hands curled into fists. But at her core, she
was brutally, ruthlessly cold. She realized that this woman was treating her as
an empress consort, nothing more. Everyone was. She should have determined that
from the first moment of her arrival, except the news of her father had been
too much of a shock.
In that moment,
Elandra finished growing up. She knew she could not be soft-edged and compliant,
and accomplish her goals. She had always wanted to please others, to have
others like her.
Now, none of that
mattered. Her world was in chaos. Her father was dying. She had lost every
material possession she owned. She had nothing to lose, no one to please, and
only one direction to go.
Her gaze impaled
Lady Lyticia’s. She said, “You have forgotten that your sovereign is present.”
Lady Lyticia
turned pale. “But—but—”
“Furthermore, that
means my father’s estates will revert to me. You may tell your governor husband
now to stop evaluating the contents of this household, for he will never put
his hands on any of it.”
“But—”
“You are
dismissed.”
Lady Lyticia stood
rooted in place, livid and wide-eyed, her mouth open and gasping.
Elandra turned her
back on the woman and looked at the physicians, who hastily assumed respectful
poses.
“You were saying?”
Elandra prompted the chief physician.
Holding his beard
in one hand, he bowed low to her. “It is our concerted opinion,” he said, his
gaze flickering slightly as the guards put a sobbing Lady Lyticia outside the
room, “that nothing can be done. When a man is crushed inside, he may live for
several days in terrible pain, but his life force cannot be contained.”
Grief stabbed
through Elandra. “This is unacceptable.”
The man bowed
again. “Sometimes, Majesty, our desires are not sufficient to change the way
things are.”
She whirled away
from him and swept from the room, barely aware of the guards saluting her.
There had to be a way to save her father, some means other than feeding him
opium for the pain and saying nothing else could be done. She knew only one
person who might know what to do.
An empress did not
run, but Elandra was past caring what anyone thought of her actions. Holding up
her skirts, she strode through the corridors and down a series of steps.
When she passed a
pair of guards standing at attention before a passageway that led to the
kitchens, she paused.
“You and you,” she
said crisply. “I require your attendance.”
Looking startled,
the men approached her. They were much alike in appearance, both wiry and
dark-skinned. Both wore sleeveless jerkins with dagger belts crisscrossed over
their chests. They carried ceremonial pikes. They looked like brothers.
“Do you know who I
am?” she asked.
Her tone was abrupt
and harsh, not at all womanly. She had no idea as she stood there, fuming with
anger and impatience, how much she sounded like her father at that moment, how
her jaw was clenched just like his, and how fiercely her eyes were snapping.
The men bowed low.
“Aye, verily,” one replied. “Thou art the daughter of our lord. Thou art the
wife of our dead emperor, a woman of full rights and property, unveiled.”
Her chin lifted in
satisfaction. “Protect me as you would Lord Albain. I will endure no more
insults beneath this roof. I will have no one stand in my way.”
The men
straightened. Their dark eyes gleamed with understanding, and before they
spoke, she knew she had their absolute loyalty.
“Give me your
names.”
“I am Alti.”
“I am Sumal.”
“We are twins,”
Alti said.
“You are now my
men,” Elandra said. “Let replacements be found for your post. Let the word be
passed through the barracks that I need a personal guard from any who will
volunteer. When the hour of danger struck in Imperia, the elite Imperial Guard
could not protect me from harm. Never again will I go forth without Gialtan
fighters at my back.”
Alti and Sumal
grinned and looked as though their chests would burst. She knew their type,
plantation-born, brought up to hard work, fearless, and incredibly loyal.
“The word shall be
given, Majesty,” Alti said.
She nodded. “Let
the word also be passed that I want a
jinja
of my own. A real one, young
and unbonded, from the wild. Not one retrained in the sorcerer’s market. I
trust my father’s soldiers to find this for me. I will not ask a nobleman to
perform this service.”
Alti and Sumal
exchanged glances, and their grins faded away. Somberly they nodded,
understanding her meaning, respect increasing in their eyes. After all, she was
Albain’s daughter before anything else, and like Albain she understood that the
true strength of Gialta lay in the hearts of its common fighting men.
“It shall be done,
Majesty,” Alti said.
Elandra smiled
briefly. “Come, then. I wish to find Lord Caelan, the tall man who came here
with me.”
They frowned and
again exchanged glances. “That is a difficulty, Majesty.”
Impatience surged
through her. “Why?”
“No one said he
was a lord. There was trouble in the gallery, and now he has been taken to the
whipping post.”
Forgetting
dignity, she whirled around and ran down the steps all the way to the gallery.
But the long room
stood empty except for a trio of women gossiping in one corner and a pair of
elderly men. The crowd of warlords and courtiers had vanished. She did not have
to ask where they had gone.
Sickening anger at
their caprice and cruelty filled her, but she wasted no time indulging her
emotions. She could be disgusted with them later; it was more important now to
stop them.
How?
If she ran outside
to the courtyard, she might be able to shame them into stopping the flogging.
But she might not. Dear Gault, if her own father perceived Caelan as no more
than a lover tagging along in her wake, these dolts of his court must think
exactly the same.
She could wait, gather
allies from within the troops, and reprimand them later.
That would be very
dignified, but it would not save Caelan’s back. She needed Caelan to go to her
father now. She hoped he might even know how to heal Albain. Caelan’s father
had been a healer. Caelan himself had studied the arts for a time. He must know
something.
Beyond that, she
could not bear to think what a public flogging would do to Caelan’s spirit. He
was just now beginning to believe in himself, just now beginning to reach out
to all the possibilities before him. Being whipped would knock him back to his
days as a slave, would bring back all the shame and humiliation he had endured
before.
She would rather
they whipped her than have Caelan go through something like that again.
Her hesitation
lasted no more than a few seconds. Faintly from outside, she could hear people
shouting and cheering in the mindless way of a mob.
“Fools,” she said
angrily, and headed for the portico.
Before she reached
it, however, a woman stepped into the doorway to block her path.
She was a tall,
fierce-eyed woman, slender despite her middle years. Her henna-streaked hair
was expertly plaited and coiffed. Expensive rings glittered on her long
fingers. Her gown was of straw-colored silk, full-skirted with a sheer green
gauze overlay. She smelled of costly ambergris perfume.
Elandra stopped in
her tracks, jolted by a sense of recognition although this woman was unknown to
her. “Let me pass,” she said with scant courtesy.
The woman did not
step aside. “We will talk, you and I.” Her gaze flickered past Elandra to Alti
and Sumal. “Dismiss your dogs, and let us go the balcony gardens where we can
be private.”
Another, more
boisterous roar rose from the crowd. Elandra glanced at her guards. “Move this
woman out of my way.”
They stepped
forward, and alarm flickered briefly in the woman’s face.
“Elandra!” she
said. “I am your mother.”
It was yet another
shock, coming on top of too many. Elandra refused to deal with it. She
couldn’t. Caelan needed her more.
“Stand aside,”
Elandra said. “This isn’t the time.”
The guards gently
moved the woman out of her path, and Elandra hastened on, fearing already from
the jeering laughs and catcalls from the crowd that she was too late.
For Caelan,
struggling with all his might to keep himself from being strangled, humiliation
warred with his pride. All his tremendous strength and fighting skills availed
him nothing as long as the air kept being shut off from his lungs. One quick
twist of the noose, and his vision would fade. Then he would be helpless,
gasping on his knees, sweat pouring off him, his strength gone from his limbs.
Each time he was
allowed to draw in air until he could stand again. Then they would propel him
forward in a halting, awkward progress down the innumerable steps. Whenever he
felt stronger and started to think about what he might try, the man controlling
the noose about his throat would jerk it hard, and the world would go black on
him again.
The courtiers
followed them in a stream, calling out merrily and laughing at the
entertainment he provided. They seemed oblivious to the rain soaking their
finery.
Caelan despised
them, and wondered how Gialta had ever gotten its reputation for powerful
armies when it had an aristocracy such as this.
But then, he would
have despised anyone who came to laugh at his shame.
The noose around
his neck reminded him of the slave chain he had worn for so many years. The
public humiliation was like being marched to the auction block all over again.
He would never forget the first time he was sold. But it had burned him no
worse than what was happening now.
His ambitions and
Moah had made him believe he could reach for the throne. But it was a delusion,
one fed by Elandra’s love and acceptance. Reality lay in the merciless faces
surrounding him.
The rain poured
into his eyes, drenching him and pounding on his breastplate.
When he reached
the bottom of the steps, they took him across a courtyard to the edge of a
parade ground. Near the barracks stood a whipping post, stout and scarred,
heavy iron rings bolted to it where he would be bound.
The rain
slackened, and men surrounded him to unbuckle his armor. For a moment the air
felt cool against his sweat-soaked tunic, then he felt a tug at his collar and
heard the ripping of cloth.
A cheer rose from the
crowd, and Caelan closed his eyes against a raw surge of anger. He had no fear
of the lash. Rage continued to build in him until it was an explosive force.
Gritting his teeth, he held it back, knowing it would do him no good to
struggle and yell curses. It would only make the crowd laugh more.
But he did not
deserve this. He had done nothing worthy of this. He had taken no action
against these people.
Gazing around at
their excited, jeering faces, Caelan saw them caught up in the madness of the
moment. He remembered the screaming spectators in the arena, how blood-crazed
and wild they were, the frenzy of their cheering, their joy at witnessing
death. Surely darkness ate the souls of such people. Worst of all, they were
Elandra’s people. He could not unleash
severance
on them.
Lord Pier stepped
forward. He held a coiled whip in his hands. “Bind him to the post.”
Caelan had planted
his feet well, and it took four men to manhandle him over to the post. They
bound his wrists securely, and only then did the noose come off his throat. He
winced, feeling a warm trickle of blood slide down his neck.
Pier handed the
whip to one of his minions and gestured. The men ripped Caelan’s tunic away,
and an appreciative gasp rose from the crowd.
“Gault above! Look
at those muscles.”
“He’s bigger than
I thought.”
“He’s a giant.”
“He’s very
handsome.”