Myuri: Chapter 2: The Daughter

            It was a dark and moonless night.  There was no wind, as there can be none when the trees are afraid to breathe. No creature stirred; no prairie vermin, nor gentle bird of flight, dared flee the safety of his den.  All was ominously still. 

            In his marble chambers, King David of Congrella sat erect on his throne. He had been a handsome soul, once; but by now, his graying eyes had seen the bloodshed of thousands of battles fought, the deaths of millions of innocent people. And so now he closed them, for many a heartbeat, before the swollen, creased eyelids parted once more. His square jaw was set firmly as he took in the vast expanse of black land before him outside his window, quiet and unmoving and standstill.  The king was alone in his throne room save one other person, his only son and heir, Prince Ardin. 

            The young prince kneeled, tensely, in earnest by the side of his father’s massive throne. The otherwise pleasant features of his face were pinched downwards, twisted horribly and ugly. Then the king spoke, and the prince closed his eyes and touched his forehead to the tiled floor, and listened.

            “I would have never expected something like this from Napoleon’s daughter.” David rose; thick blockish hands clasped behind his back, and came to stand at the window. “He was a good friend to me. I was deeply saddened by his death.” 

            “My lord, the Queen Kylani inherited her father’s natural talent.  Remember what they used to say of his Excellency the Lord Napoleon: ‘If the man wished to grow wings and fly amongst the birds, then not even the angels of heaven in all their glory could match him.’”

            The king shook his head slowly; wisely. “It is not her capacity that astounds me. Her power, her cunning, her skill; all I foresaw.”

            “Then over what do you puzzle, father?”

            King David was motionless and silent for so long that Ardin began to wonder if his time to inherit the crown had at last come. Then he turned around, very sharply, and looked his son so intently in the eyes that it took all of Ardin not to look away.

            “Not her ability, but her motives.  Her reasons. What she’s done.”  He laughed then, a terrible, frightening laugh:  dry and cracking with age, and bordering on hysteria. “Come hither, my son.” He coughed now, perhaps exhausted from his earlier laughter.

            Ardin picked himself up off the marble flooring and, his arms crossed behind him respectfully, obeyed.   He stood with his father in silence for a long time; before David finally spoke, he counted seven trees beginning to wake up in the grove below. The sky was now a paler black, shrouded in part by milky clouds, with pink-and-blue veins of breaking dawn threshed through it.  The first songbird of the morning now sang its song, from somewhere far away and high above; a lyrical, beautiful chirruping that seemed somehow sad. The prince blinked eyes the color of burnt sandalwood. “My lord…”

            “Look.” David’s voice, louder and older than time itself, overpowered Ardin’s. “I want you to take a good look at our country, before that barbarian queen destroys it. There she is, boy…Myuri. In all her beauty and all her glory.”  His voice was now taking on a strange face; it was lowering, both in volume and pitch, becoming glazed over and slightly hypnotic in nature, as if he was channeling an old side of himself lost long ago, that he was only now discovering had been within him all along.  “To the north lies the city-state of Ra Fay, the center of all Myurian commerce.  In the south sits Eurandala, where the young men who will grow to protect their native Myuri are born and raised and bred and trained.

            “Over in the west, rests the city-state of Ara, a haven offering a sedate, civilian life for those who are ending their journeys; for our loyal soldiers finished at last with their lives of battle and bloodlust.  In the east lies Autumnrain, the farmers’ Promised Land, with its rich soil and luscious earth and rolling hills.  And then there is the capital of Myuri, our own city, my son; our Congrella, buried in the heart of the country, in the center of all the five cities.”

            Ardin listened, intently, head bowed, to his father’s words. He had felt a strange poetic rhythm overtake him, soothe him, assuage his worries and troubles and concerns, until now. It was not like his father to make a mistake, especially not about something of relevance to Myuri.  “My lord,” he interrupted, quietly; courteously. “What of the sixth city? What of Espiarius?”

            The king’s face contorted; soured like old milk left out in the sun and forgotten. “Espiarius is no longer a part of us. Kylani has turned her back on her country. She serves only herself now, and her city follows her in this shame.”  His face darkened, the old but sharply angled features fading now, lost in the blackening shadows that darted furtively across David’s mighty visage. “How can a single woman stand alone against four lords, and myself, king of the whole Myuri, and triumph?” The king slammed a fist down onto the windowsill. It quavered pathetically and was still. “The only explanation for that is her being Napoleon’s daughter. None could match him. He was a higher being. Not meant for this plane of existence.”

            Ardin spoke now, quietly. “Kylani matched him.”

            Silence fell, thick and almost indistinguishable in the gloom that hung over the chamber almost tangibly.

            “There has been but one person in history who could oppose Kylani and stand a chance. “ David stroked his chin with a slow calmness.

            Ardin looked up sharply. “Surely you do not mean-“

            “But I do. The one and only.”

            “Father, she was a tyrant. Her death was a joyous time for our nation!”         

            David closed his gray eyes unhurriedly. “It must be done.  It cannot be helped.”       Ardin was scornful enough to momentarily forget his manners. “Oh sure,” he snorted, wryly, “it’s that easy. It’s suicide. The only people willing to try to accomplish that kind of thing are…are…the human scum of society. Those with no other options. The dreamers. The trapped. The mad. The misfits. You’ll never find a healthy man going anywhere in life willing to risk his hide on this damned journey of yours. It’s never been done! You can’t wake Myuri up, it…it…” He hesitated, at a loss for words. “The mad, I tell you. The foolish. The dreamers…”

            David fixed his son with a cold, paralyzing gaze. “Then those we will find. Someone must do it.” He coughed, drily; hatefully. “I would go myself, with good will. But I am not as young as I once was, and you-” here he turned to regard Ardin with what appeared to be spite, or something along that boulevard “- are clearly too much a coward to try yourself. So we will seek the mad and the crazed and the nothings of society if we must, if only to find a party willing to try.”

            Ardin stood speechless for several moments. Then at last he spoke.

            “But… how? How? There is no magic in Myuri. None.”

            “Mount Ascendon.”

            A silence.        

            “We will dispatch some trusted courtiers to search for this party. We will have them brought to court. All will be secret, until the time is right.”

            “Secrecy,” David repeated, softly, to himself. “Secrecy.”

            “Yes, my lord, yes. Secrecy.”

*

Klaude woke drenched in her own sweat, with a circle of housewives assembled around her, and the boy from the night before. She felt herself melting beneath a thick blanket, felt as though her own perspiration would swallow her whole.

            “Klaude,” the boy said.

            “Help… I’m absolutely burning.”

            He offered her his hand, which she accepted and used to prop up her light little body.

            The women gathered Klaude’s sweat-soaked sheets to be washed and then waited for the boy to say something.

“Fetch her some dress, and draw her a bath, please, my ladies,” he ordered, simply. He pulled himself a bit closer to Klaude, and breathed into her neck, “Although as it is, I find your scent quite, quite alluring.”

Klaude stripped her cloak, and then dipped her little feet into the cool waters of the brook. She looked over her body with disdain; she examined her skin to find that most of it was raw purple and dirt-stained.

            One of the ladies coaxed her into the bath and tenderly washed her body with scented soap; she wet Klaude’s hair and brushed it neatly. She then helped her out of the waters to dry, and offered her a light summer dress.

            “Thank you,” Klaude said.

            Her clumsy little fingers laced the low bodice of the pretty blue summer dress. It was so simple, but fit her body so very well, which surprised her as the housewives that had tended to her were all quite large. Its lace hems reached a bit above her knees, its sleeves fitting neatly at her elbows. “It is lovely, thank you.”

            And then they helped her back to the boy’s tent, as there was no other place for her, yet.

            He was chattering amongst a couple other men while sorting through several baskets, but he sent them away upon her entrance.

            “They must have asked you to rest?”

            “Yes,” Klaude replied slowly. “Who are they?”

            “Wives of some friends of mine. And you are feeling better?”

            She nodded and let him guide her to the low mattress. “Still tired… I… what are you called?”

            “Justin,” he answered simply, “Justin. My name is Justinian, but you have asked what I am called, and I am called Justin.”

            She lay back, and turned away from him uneasily. “I’m sorry that I take your bed, again. I thank you for this; you are very kind to me. I owe you my life, as little meaning as it has. I owe you everything.”

            “You owe me nothing. Yourself is enough.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “It means I have never once seen, let alone been close as this, to anything so beautiful as you.”

            Klaude could feel herself blushing, she could feel the warmth in her cheeks, she could feel her color rising; so she brought his cool hand to her face, and let it stay there.

*

“We will be staying here, for the night,” the lady LaRue said, and she halted their ponies in front of a little inn and brought them into the stable. She dragged their cart to the back and tied it down with a rope from her apron.

            “Where are we?” Reina demanded, slowly following the old lady up the front steps of the inn.

            “Why, look around you. Do you see these rich lanterns that line the roads? Uphill, and not very far at all, do you see that grand castle, that King David and only King David may call his house? Why, we are in the capital of Myuri. The capital of the true king, not some murderous queen that is trying to usurp him,” LaRue spat. “You should know this place very well. You were born here.” She gazed over her shoulder and looked at Reina, for a very long time. “And you belong here,” she mumbled, to herself.

            “That was seventeen long years ago, so I know this place not. And I am sure it has changed plenty, in the seventeen years I have been away growing up in some nobody-village.”

            LaRue stopped and she closed her eyes and sighed. “No, Reina it has not. It has not changed at all. By God. Not a bit.” She plaintively clutched at the fat jewel hanging from her neck.

            “You have lived here then? You have lived at Myuri’s capital?”

            “Yes.”

            “Oh! Then why would you ever wish to leave?”

            “That’s not important,” LaRue replied, sternly. “Here is a purse of some moneys. Pray get us a room.”

            “And when we get a room, then what?” pressed Reina, with the eagerness and impatience of a girl.

            “I will walk up to the palace, tell the guard at the gates what has happened and request an audience with the king; we will see him tomorrow and tell him what has occurred and things will be right and well, and we will receive settlement.”

            Reina pictured herself spending the rest of her life with such a bitter senior-lady at some countryside settlement and frowned.

The innkeeper exchanged her coins for a room key and some directions to the room. “And you may get food and drink at the tavern.”

            Reina looked at the tavern through the open doorway; it was very noisy and there was no staff ordering the most un-lady-like girls to put their dress back on, nor stop pairs of men and women from making most wild love on tabletops. It was mad as any whorehouse.

Reina had been forbidden by her father to go to any place so crude.

But he was dead.

There were two small beds, each with a pillow and linen sheets, a bath and a pisspot.

            Reina stripped her dress and shift – the only clothing she had – and stepped into the cold waters of the bath. She was chilled to the bone and there was lots of dirt at the surface of the bath, but she was filthy and covered in coats of her own dried sweat, and so she rinsed herself in the water and rubbed her skin and hair down with oils.

            She then dried and wrapped herself with towels and soaked her dirty dress of faded lavender color in what was left of the bath.

            LaRue was soon there; she threw herself onto one of the beds, slipping her feet from her leathery boots, and laughed. “The guard was terribly frightened. I am sure the king will be, too, when he hears that a village only a few days journey from his beloved capital has been captured. He is very fortunate that we lived. He will see us tomorrow, they say. At dawn. He will send an escort.” The woman stood and entered the bath chamber.

            “Reina, do go and fetch some water for the bath and the piss. And some food and good ale while you are down there. Take a dress of mine.”

            Reina took the bag of LaRue’s wears in her hand and searched it. “Everything in here is so fine. And there is fine jewelry, too. Almost as fine as what you wear at your neck.”

            Impatiently, the old woman snatched the smallest dress from the bag: simple gray damask, with a very low bodice and fairly short skirt. “Put on this and then go do as I have said.”

Reina managed to struggle her way across the busy tavern to the counter.

            “I would like some bread and potatoes and whatever fruit you may have, and some good ale. And a jug of water for the bath and piss,” she said to the boy at the front.

            “A wench will go to your rooms with the water,” the boy replied.       And then he set off to the back to do her bidding.

Reina sat and waited.

“You wanted good ale?”

She turned to the boy to her right. He was very dark and very handsome, almost in a dangerous sense; he held out his opened bottle of ale to her.

“Yes, good ale, not yours. For my mistress. Seniors do enjoy it at night,” Reina replied.

“You are nurse to an older lady, then?”

“Not really,” she answered after a pause. And then she could not help but brag, “We will be going to see the king tomorrow.”

“Does he wish to wife you? I could not blame him, if he did. You are terribly pretty. You quite tempt me.”

Reina could find no words to respond; she just blushed prettily. It was seldom that she was able to enjoy the flirtations of a man so attractive.

“Eric,” a girl prompted him. And he followed her upstairs – but not after giving Reina a final look; a final look of rue and desire.

And then a wench arrived with the food and ale and two jugs of water and came up with Reina to her rooms.

*

“Here is some broth the wives bid me take to you,” Ashleigh said, entering the sitting area of Justin’s tent.

            Justin looked up from the blade he had been sharpening for his master; he had cut himself a little bit. “Thank you.”

            “May I see it?”

            “See what?”

            “The sick creature the wives were talking about, of course.”

            “There is none,” he replied impatiently.

            “Then you wanted the broth for yourself?” she inquired, her suspicions aroused.

             The bowl was burning his hands. “No. Thank you for bringing it, Miss Ashleigh. I really do appreciate that.”

            “Is this for a girl? A girl in your bed? My father would not approve. I do not approve. Surely not, Justin? When we are betrothed? Surely not!”

            “She was hurt, and once she is well and able to talk, we will escort her to wherever her place is.”

            “Fine then,” Ashleigh spat, grim as a bitter wife. “Don’t forget that you are mine.”

            “I am not. I would leave your father in a trice, if only to be free of you.”

Justin brought the broth Klaude, still lying in his bed.

            “I’d hoped that you would come back. I want to go outside. To walk. Will you walk with me?”

            “Of course. You look better though you have always looked very good, to me.”

            She laughed a bit. “Is that for me?”

            “Yes.” He spooned some of the hot broth into her prim little mouth. “And, though I wish that I could have you forever, since you are well you should be brought to wherever your place is. I can imagine you are missed. I know that I would miss you, too.”

            “I… I have no place. I’m sorry. I know I should have started with that.”

            “What have you to apologize for? That the universe has been cruel to you?”

            “No, it is just that…”

            “The wives need help with cooking, and children need tending. I’m sure your help will be appreciated,” he said, simply.

            “I may stay?”

            “Of course. You would be quite helpful.”

            She paused. “But…? But what?”

            “There is no ‘but.’ Why would there be one, when I love to have you with me, so much? Allow me to be the first man to treat you right, Klaude.”

            “It would always be like this, then? You and I, together like this? Forever?”

            Justin was quiet; he hated that word. He hated to think that he would be a nothing like this – a servant – forever. He hated to think that it would always be like this; he hated to think that he would never be able to do something truly great for his beloved Myuri when it would need something truly great done to save its skin from a rising, usurping conqueress.

“I should hope not,” he finally replied.

“Why ever? Is your master unkind?”

“He is good to me. But he could never give me what I truly want.”

“Pray tell me what that is.” Klaude put her hand about his knee and spread her fingers about it gently.

“You,” he said, without hesitation. He knew this just by the way she felt in his hand at that very moment, the way he wished only to care for her as he had never any other woman.

“Of course he cannot do that. Only I can. And know that I would happily.”

His lips pressed very lightly, very gently, against her own for just a heartbeat; he did not feel her mouth as he had desired to, but he did not want to push so far.

“I have always valued chivalry in a man,” Klaude whispered into his neck; her breath was summer strawberries. “But at this very moment, I do not. Hear me: I can fend for myself. I dare you to test this.”

*

“I am told there is a whore in town who invites you to her bed,” the tavern manager greeted Eric, who had come down from his room for his morning ale.

            “She and every woman in Myuri, then.”

            “Ahh, but it is a formal invitation, Eric. She sends a good page.”

            “I’m not in the mood,” Eric replied, irritably.

            “That’s a first,” laughed the bartender, merrily. Eric frowned.

            “And you know I am not one for desperate women.”

            “Is something the matter, Sir? You are usually in higher spirits.”

            Eric had slept poorly the night before. He had sent away his slut after she had serviced him, and lay thinking about the dark-haired maid he had briefly conversed with, at the bar. She was polite and did not fling herself onto him; she was sweet and cheerful in conversation. But, at any rate, she was gone.

            “Tell this to no one.”

            “I am all ears but no mouth then, Sir.”

            “I met a girl yesterday, here. She was very lady-like –”

            “Not a whore, then?”

            “No. And I had a stirring for her. Not one of lust, though I did desire her well. But, rather than to bed her, I would have liked to speak with her, to know her - which, you must know, is incredibly unusual for me. She said she would be seeing the king, this morning.”

            “Ahh, really? There was a royal escort here, about an hour or so ago. It took a dark-haired girl and an older maid.”

            “She said she had a senior mistress,” Eric recalled, to himself, “that must have been her.”

            “But she was very pretty, and you know King David’s lust; it almost compares to your own, Eric. He will probably take her as his mistress, take her fine, irresistible body.”

            “For shame, that you should speak of His Majesty like that,” Eric laughed.

            The bartender shrugged. “And, so then, if you are not doing anything today, why not see the whore?”

            “Fine, then, since you are so adamant.”

            “Good, good! I will get the page and he will take you to her. She won’t be here long.”

Eric followed the page to a little house up the road.

            “She is inside, Sir. She will leave here after you are done.”

            “Wait – do tell me about her. It is strange for a man to ride a mare he has never once seen before.”

            “Please, do so go in. You will see.” And the page turned on his heel and was gone.

            Eric opened the door a crack; he could see a girl, her back to him. He could see worn copper hair; he entered reluctantly. She was no great beauty; he could already tell this.

            “Hello,” he said, awkwardly. “I am told you won’t be here long, and I do not want to be here long, so come. Shall we?”

            And then she turned around. Eric’s heart almost gave with shock.

            The woman held a baby to her bosom. “Hello, Eric.”

            “Dele – gracious! Dele!” Eric cried. “You always said you would come back to me, and you did not. I have waited, you know? And it has been more than a year. You look so terribly different! And, oh, what is this?” He reached out and touched the child. She forced it into his arm.

            “You have not waited very patiently,” Dele scoffed. “I am told you lie with more women than the master of a whorehouse.”

            Eric flushed. He ignored her words; he ignored them because they were true and for the first time yet he felt a small flash of shame. “What is this?” he asked, referring to the little female infant.

            “She is yours.”

            “What…?”

            “I said she is our daughter. Your daughter. I have titled her Rynn.”

            “My god, Madame! You come back to me now, after more than a year’s time has elapsed, not to find pleasure in seeing me, but to dump something, upon me?”

            “How could anyone find pleasure in seeing a whore such as yourself?” she spat back. “And this is your own fault. When I lay with you, I genuinely felt love for you, and thought you returned it. But as it turns out, you are just a lustful fool, and that I gave you my virginity meant nothing at all to you, though it meant the world, to me. My mother and father have disowned me. I came here because I thought you had honor and class and the grace to take me and our child in. But clearly there is no room for family in your life, just a whore in your bed! And I am dumping something upon you, if you must call beautiful human life a something. You must take ‘it’. It is not within your choice; you must. Or let your own kin die with me.”

            Eric paled; his expression darkened. “You are right. There is no room for family in my life. There has been no room since my good mother and father were both murdered.”

            Dele was quiet, for a little bit. She had taken no notice to the tears wet and hot on her face. “Then take this baby as your own. Be its father. Be the father that you lost.”

            And then for the first time, Eric wept before a woman. He took the baby and he wept.

*

That morning, Reina and the Madam LaRue left the inn with a royal escort taking them to King David.

            The sun was just starting to rise, and as they walked outside Reina took pleasure in its sweet kiss.

            “What happens to us after this, LaRue?” she asked, as they filed into the horse-drawn carriage. It was small and cozy and yet Reina felt like a prisoner.

            “The king will give us appropriate settlement, since we have lost our homes. All will be well.”

            Reina was quiet. “What good is a settlement when our dear Myuri is about to be swallowed whole by a demonic usurper?”

            “His Majesty will have his army protect us. He and his advisers will come up with something. And then I assure you Reina, this little rebellion or civil war – whatever you choose to call it – will be over and forgotten,” said LaRue, with more confidence than she felt.

            “You know that is not true. It is only a matter of time. She is a conqueress that compares to the Queen Myuri I.”

            “What you say is treason!” whispered LaRue, sharply. “And in the end, Kylani is just a woman, a queen. And a queen is no match for a king. After all, she is but a girl. She is just eighteen. She is a little girl; His Majesty is a man. A child is no match for a man, for a good king.”

            Reina laughed scornfully. “That is probably what her dead father thought.”