Chapter 4
Jacquelyn was late the next day—but to be fair, Marcus had never known a woman to be on time. There was a proverb his father loved to quote: “Life is not a series of problems to be solved, merely a list of conditions to be lived with.” It was one of the few of his father’s lessons that Marcus had taken to heart.
So he waited for her in the Atrium. Even if he hadn’t been so acquainted with the palace, Marcus would have known the chamber by the noise alone. It was, in many ways, the heart of the palace. It was a common area, an ideal place for courtiers to gather. Some of their affairs were serious—political negotiation, trade agreements, betrothals and the like, all of which were masked by the ceaseless drone of voices. Most, though, preferred the Atrium’s more lighthearted uses. Various courtiers lounged on the benches scattered about the broad chamber, or threw dice at the checkered gaming tables obscured by enormous planters, or surreptitiously flirted with courtesans between the vast marble columns lining the chamber.
Marcus opted to sit on the Atrium’s open side, where a peek through the columns provided a pleasant view of the gardens. The aroma of lilacs drifted past his nose, and the sun beamed warm on his face. Fine day for a ride, he thought. He squinted at the heating sun and wondered which horse he ought to take. Breggo? Perhaps, but Jacquelyn would probably be riding a mare, and stallions were enough of a handful when they were calm. Gelding, then. Good. Morin hadn’t stretched his legs in a long time.
“Why good morning, my lord prince.”
Shit. “Hello, Kaelyn. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She looked lovely today, like always. She had dressed for warm weather—crimson hair in a tail, sleeveless dress, laced-up sandals. “To her,” the courtesan said, flicking her eyes back at a retreating maid. She held out a sealed envelope. “She was about to give you this.”
“My thanks.” He dropped it on his lap.
“Not even going to see who it’s from?”
He didn’t smile. Hopefully if he kept that up, she would get the point and leave him alone. “I’m sure it can wait.”
However, Kaelyn did not take the point. She sank into the seat beside him, almost too close for decency, and brushed his thigh with her fingers as she whisked the envelope up. “Hmm. Plain seal. Could be a desperate pauper, or…” she smirked, her hand poised above the seal, “someone with a taste for the mysterious. Shall I open it?”
“If you really want to, go right ahead.”
The smirk became a slight frown. She sighed and tossed the envelope back. “Not really, no. I came to see you.” She slowly and deliberately turned her gaze over her shoulder. A young courtier thought she was looking at him and smiled at her; she smiled back and waved, as if she had meant to greet him all along, and returned her attention to Marcus.
“You could have just asked me if anyone’s watching us, you rotten bitch.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” She inspected her flawless nails. “Do you have any arrangements tonight? Any more drunken lollygags in the company of the common, and so on?”
Marcus pretended not to be grinding his teeth. There was no good way to go about this kind of business. “Not tonight, Kaelyn.”
Her eyebrow shot up. It took very little to arouse a courtesan’s interest—especially Lady Roslene’s daughter. “That’s so? I haven’t been boring you, have I?” He said nothing, so she pressed, “If it was that assignation with Lord DeMiric, you’ll understand if I tell you to grow some fruits.”
It wasn’t the case, but that made this whole thing much easier. “Well while we’re on that subject, let me ask: how was that shriveled prick of his?”
She coughed in disbelief. “My God, you really do care about this, don’t you?”
“Does he still trim? I imagine he has to pull the wrinkles taut before he starts—”
That worked. Kaelyn stood, head wagging furiously. “You’re an ass. A royal ass, at that.” Marcus had to reflect on the fact that a month ago, before he’d made the terrible mistake of sleeping with her, it would have taken much worse to work her up like this. “It’s work, Marcus. What the hell else am I supposed to do?”
“Marry me and ride off into the flaming sunset. And the horse is on fire, too.” It made his insides burn, flippantly lying like this. Worse still, he was good at it. “Bother me in a few weeks and maybe I’ll have gotten over this.”
She stared. “I can’t believe you.” She turned, started walking—
—into Jacquelyn. The two came within an inch of colliding, but the courtesan stopped just short.
“Oh. Pardon me, I’m sorry,” said Jacquelyn, though she had been standing still. She smiled uneasily.
Kaelyn’s mouth opened slightly. She glanced at Marcus, then a reddening Jacquelyn, then Marcus again. With that, her expression blanked. Her mouth shut. Her color even stayed neutral. If not for the near-invisible twitch of her fingers, Marcus would have thought her calm.
Without another word, she brushed past Jacquelyn and stalked away, her sandals scuffing the marble floor.
Jacquelyn watched her go. “Friend of yours?”
He made himself smile, though in truth he wanted to bludgeon himself against the column beside him until he went unconscious. “Everyone wants to be a prince’s friend. I can’t satisfy them all. You ready to go?”
As if he needed any more demonstration of his lying ability, the girl’s discomfort instantly faded into excitement. She held up a riding crop, beaming at him. “Yes! I’ve a man outside holding my mare.”
He lurched upright, let her take his elbow, and began leading them out toward the Atrium’s entrance, outside which the palace’s grand steps were just visible in the summer brightness. The fact that his mother had lain there, dead on her bier, only darkened his mood further. But on the outside, he was all cheer. “Mare, eh? How’d I guess? I was debating with myself earlier, and you tell me what you think, whether I should ride stallion or gelding…”
In past years, the review of the battlements had been a convention for Marcus, and little more—just another princely chore to get out of the way. So far, this time was no different.
Ancellon’s outer walls were six miles in circumference. Each year, he inspected every foot of those six miles. There was much more to the walls than breadth; they towered overhead, the height of ten tall men. Their smooth white limestone amplified the sun’s already-overpowering brightness—which of course made Marcus’s task near impossible. It was a lucky thing that this duty was mere tradition; the Mason’s Guild and the city watch were tasked with supervising the walls at all times.
Needless though this task was, Jacquelyn was clearly impressed. “They’re huge!” she pronounced in awed tones. “They make Isenne look like a hamlet!”
“Large they are,” agreed Marcus. He glanced up at the battlements, snarling in the sun’s heat.
Heat which Jacquelyn hadn’t noticed in her delight. “I’m sure they’re even bigger from up there! Can we walk the battlements later on?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She bounced excitedly in her saddle, making her horse whinny. Abashed, she stroked its mane to hush it.
Marcus smiled to himself. He always managed to drag a girl along for this, and they invariably and endlessly whined about the heat, the length of the walls, whatever. It was good to have Jacquelyn along. Whether she was feigning enjoyment or not, she was pleasant company. He rarely ever stumbled across nice girls, and he was going to savor the opportunity.
The review was a minor event, but there were plenty along for the ride. A gaggle of journeymen from the Stonemasons’ Guild scurried along the base of the walls with measuring tapes and leveling rulers, while the master masons looked on from their horses. The House of Architects and the Carpenters’ Guild were represented as well. Besides them, there was a veritable horde of constables, city planners, scribes, mathematicians, and tradesmen among other professions.
They kept a respectful distance from their prince, but he
could see their concerned expressions.
“Is there anything I should be worried about, Master Blanton?” he asked the senior Mason riding beside him.
The elderly man signaled one of his journeymen by the wall, who shook his head and made a scribbling motion on his palm. “As of yet, no, your highness. There are more computations to be made.”
Marcus detected a trace of worry but said nothing. Better to await a solid answer than worry over speculation—for now, at least.
He turned to continue his conversation with Jacquelyn, but there was a clatter of hooves from behind him. Now, instead of the Master Mason, a pale blue-eyed man with a fuzzy orb of white hair was riding beside him. “Amusing!” he piped in a high-pitched voice.
“Lord Smelding,” greeted Marcus, a bit warily. “I wasn’t aware that you were here.”
“Well here I am, my good young lord! Here I am! Yes,” he piped on, flicking his wrist at the journeymen, “look at all these worry-warts with all their worrying ways! Foolish, is it not, to cry over problems which do not exist!”
Marcus looked quizzically at Jacquelyn, who was laughing behind one hand. “You may be right, my lord, but from the looks on their faces, the likelihood of a problem seems realer by the minute.”
“Perhaps, your highness, but—” he leaned in with a maniacal grin and whispered, “I believe I have stumbled across the secret hidden truth of existence, and if I am correct, the implications may be more enormous than any fault in these stones will ever be! The truth of existence, my lord Pilars!”
He heard Jacquelyn’s faint coughs of laughter beside him, and he was doing his best not to laugh himself. “That’s an important truth indeed, Lord Smelding. Let’s be out with it.” He was an interesting sort of fellow, Smelding—rich beyond belief, but with no interest in worldly affairs like land, money, women. He invested his time in philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, zoology, science of all kinds—and as a result seemed quite mad to most people.
“I’ve been at it for nearly a year now,” Smelding pronounced excitedly. “I first noticed with birds. I always set out seeds in my gardens for them, in hopes of one day discovering the secret of flight. No luck on that yet, but I one day wondered how birds find the seeds—after all, they are tiny little things. So the next day, I set out two dishes—one with normal seeds, the other with seeds painted green, like the grass around. As I suspected, the birds devoured the unpainted seeds, yet the painted seeds went untouched!”
Marcus smirked. “Perhaps birds dislike the taste of paint.”
“Quite so, my lord, your young mind is ever keen! Yet homing pigeons may find their home roost, no matter the place from which they are set free!”
“I don’t see the connection, my lord.”
“My point is that birds do utilize sight, but they do not navigate by sight alone. They cannot possibly use smell, as they do not react to scented food any more than scentless food. I needn’t even speculate that they navigate by touch, or taste for that matter! Therefore, I propose that birds possess a sense beyond our feeble five—a sixth sense!”
Marcus nodded. “So they do. But what do birds and sixth senses have to do with the secret of existence?”
The self-made scholar leaned in close, not seeming to care that he was near to tottering off his saddle. “My lord prince,” he whispered emphatically, “I have proven that reality is relative! Do you not see? Everything we grasp, everything we comprehend, is reliant upon a mere five senses! Imagine the implications! There exists a range of information which nature has dictated lies beyond our grasp! We have our own lens through which we interpret the world, yet this cannot possibly be the only lens in existence. We base our lives on information which is limited by its very nature. Therefore, I propose to you, your highness, that all… knowledge… is… relative!”
Marcus frowned, pondering. “Are you arguing against objective truth?”
“My lord prince, how can objective truth possibly exist? Every living being reacts to a reality which he, alone, is privy to. I may assert that the sky above is blue, and you must agree, yet this does not mean that we see the same color. Our minds agree, but not necessarily our senses. It is just as the great philosopher Krateos of Lyria said: ‘There is no such thing as truth. There are only facts and the way in which men interpret them.’”
“I cannot agree, Lord Smelding. A blinded soldier may not see the arrow that strikes him, yet it strikes and kills him all the same. That arrow exists.”
“Does it? Does it truly? You have not examined the full implications of my theory! It may well be that, in the great scheme of existence, that existence itself is merely a figment of our imagination! Ha!” He rode along with that same grin, his eyes dancing with insanity.
Marcus stared at him for a few moments. “Well, my lord, it seems you’ve defeated me. So tell me, what end does this theory of yours accomplish?”
Smelding glanced past him; his grin faded, then stretched even wider than before. “Well for starters, my theory implies that that gargantuan hole in the outer wall may, in fact, not exist.”
Marcus whirled so fast that his horse slewed sideways. His jaw went slack as the rest of the party cried out in dismay. “I certainly hope you’re right,” he murmured.
It wasn’t quite a hole, but it was a fault, and it was immense. A thirty-yard stretch of wall had begun to break free of its foundation; it bulged outward, leaning ever-so-slightly over their heads. Great white stones, once part of a mirror-smooth surface, were now stacked haphazardly, some sticking out several inches from their original berths. Worse still, the whole mess had literally begun to sink into the earth. The ground around the site was visibly depressed; the hole was about the height of a toddler.
“What in the hell…” Marcus said to himself. Louder, he demanded, “I rode these walls just last year, and I return to find this? Master Blanton, what in God’s name am I seeing?”
The old man mouthed at him with watering eyes. “I… I don’t know, your highness.”
“Get to finding out, then!” Bowing, the Master Mason rode off.
Everyone was in similar states of confusion. The journeymen were rushing around the site, taking all sorts of measurements, babbling to each other and shouting out notes for the scribes. Their masters barked out commands. All this while auxiliaries like Marcus watched, aghast and furious.
“They say these walls have stood for a thousand years,” Jacquelyn recited, trying to make sense of it like the rest of them.
“The inner walls, yes. These, no. The outer walls are four hundred years younger but this is something new.”
Jacquelyn looked up at the sagging battlements, wide-eyed. “Can they repair it?”
“I’m no craftsman,” admitted Marcus, staring up with her. “But it looks like it’ll take some doing.”
“I’m so confused… how come no one’s noticed a hole this big?”
“No one patrols the walls anymore, not since the border forts were built.” The slum rats on the other side of this wall had probably seen the fault. Either they had ignored it, or their report was still working its way through bureaucracy. Neither possibility was comforting.
A few silent minutes later, the Master Mason reined his horse in beside them. He said between pants, “My lord, the stones themselves are sound. The mortar looks to be in order. It must be something beneath.”
“You mean the foundation?”
He shook his head. “No, the ground is good, or the wall would have shown signs of wear long before today. That leaves one possibility, my lord prince.”
“Sappers.”
“Yes. A tunnel. A large one, by the looks of it.”
Marcus called, “Guardmaster!” At that, an armored man rode up. He saluted. Marcus saluted back and ordered, “There is a tunnel undermining this wall. I want both entrances found. Search every house in this quarter of the city, every cellar. Send parties to scour the countryside. Arrest anyone you suspect has a hand in this. Get it done. Understood?”
“Aye, my lord!” And the man was off at the gallop, his lieutenants following in his wake.
“Master Blanton, what will it take to repair this wall?”
The old guildmaster shrunk lower in the saddle. “A fault of this size… we must knock it all down, everything within a hundred yards of this spot. Then we rebuild from the foundation. But we must first find the tunnel and fill it, and quickly, before the fault widens.”
“How long will the repairs take?”
Blanton bit his lip and rolled his eyes, doing invisible calculations in his head. “Up to eight months,” he said finally. “Weather permitting. I pray we see a drought next spring, my lord, for rain will delay us further. But that tunnel must be found before we attempt anything.”
Marcus was cursing in his mind. He willed his expression into calmness. “Very good, Master Blanton. Start gathering any laborers and materials you need. At the same time, coordinate with the guardmaster. Soon as he finds the tunnel, begin the repairs. Disregard any thought toward the expense. I expect you to keep me completely up to date on your progress.”
“As you will, your highness.”
Gripping the reins, Marcus drew his horse off and began trotting back the way he came. It would be a long ride back to the South Gate, with the way this day was going.
Jacquelyn was close by his side. “I hope they find that tunnel,” she said earnestly.
“Same here.”
She noted his curt tone and fell silent. They rode along to the rhythm of hooves on grass for a few minutes. Then the girl said, “You’re a very good leader.”
He snorted. “What makes you say that?”
“Well… everyone looked so frightened and confused.” She smiled uneasily. “I felt that way too. Then you took charge. You didn’t even pause. That dumb guildmaster, he would have just stood there if you hadn’t yelled at him. The same with the guardmaster and his men.”
“My thanks for the compliment. But they all knew what to do already.”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t have done anything if not for you. They would have milled around like sheep. But you were there to get them moving. You didn’t know any better than them, you just took charge, and they followed you. That’s a leader.”
Marcus smiled at her. “You know, you like to act clueless, but you’re smarter than you let on.”
There came that laugh again. He loved hearing it; it was so lively and genuine, unlike the laughter at court that he was so accustomed to. She teased, “Oh, and here was me thinking I had you fooled.”
“Not for a moment.” A thought occurred to him. “You wanted to walk the battlements, didn’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Let’s go, then.”
They went, but they didn’t quite get there. It was almost early evening by the time they reached the gate. At this time of day, and with the harvest in and next spring’s crop planted, traffic in and out of the city was at a minimum. That left only a few farmers’ cart-stands, a lot of filthy beggars, and a troop of gypsies which—unsurprisingly—the guards had refused to allow into the city overnight. Brown children fought over a leather ball while scarved women sulkily kneaded dough, and their men puffed on long clay pipes.
They all stopped to watch Marcus, Jacquelyn, and the guards saunter past, jealously eying their horses—and their purses, Marcus thought, though he tried his best not to.
“They’re scary,” Jacquelyn whispered.
“Don’t worry about them,” reassured Marcus. He looked ahead again—and startled so hard he nearly drew his sword. Instead, he jerked hard on the reins, and his horse skidded to a stop. In front of him, nearly touching the horse’s snout, was a gypsy girl. She could have been anywhere from fifteen to mid-twenties, but it was tough to tell with her naturally smooth features. She stared unflinchingly up at him with her arms crossed, her garrulously-colored dress flapping in the breeze.
Gail and Kelly’s horses skidded to a halt to either side of the girl. Growling, they pointed their spears, while Blaxley took up the rear with his bow drawn taut. Around them, the gypsies were all on their feet. Every one of them had a knife out—even the women and children. Marcus’s hand was on his sword, and it was a hand’s length out of its sheath before he realized how stupid this was.
“Stand down, let her be.”
The two guards put up their spears and backed off, still looking nothing but pissed. The gypsies hadn’t moved a muscle, not even caring that the crown prince and his six guards could have killed them all with little trouble.
Finally, the gypsy girl spoke up in her strange accent. “My lady Mirela, Teller of Secrets, bids you visit her tent. She has for you a message of great import.”
Marcus’s laughter echoed around the clearing as the gypsies and beggars stared. “You must be joking. Girl, do you have any idea how many times you almost just got killed?”
“Mirela, Teller of Secrets—”
“Yes, I heard you,” he interrupted, “and I think I’ve had enough damned secrets for one day.” Secret letters he cared nothing for, secret affairs with beautiful courtesans, secret tunnels under the God damned walls…
He started to move past, but the girl stepped into his way again. “Mirela knows who you are. Your need is dire, or my lady would not ask your presence, Elessian prince.”
Marcus ground his teeth. “For the love of God…” He would have barged on past, if not for Jacquelyn.
“Why not see her? It’s not so much trouble on our part.”
“I try not to make a habit of playing along with gypsy schemes.”
The gypsy snapped, “This is no scheme. You need not pay. Only hear.”
Jacquelyn offered, “I’d like to hear my fortune, at least. Maybe she’ll tell me if you’ll have dinner with me tomorrow.”
Well, she had played her hand. There was no fighting her now. Marcus’s expression went sour. “Fine.” He dismounted, offered Jacquelyn his hand, and helped her off her mare. “I’d better be fucking dazzled,” he told the girl.
Her expression was placid as she led the way into the caravan camp. It wasn’t an unusual gypsy camp—just a collection of haphazardly-parked wagons with arched roofs, and in the center, a paddock filled with hairy-maned ponies. They didn’t have to go far before they arrived at what was apparently the lady Mirela’s wagon—a bright purple thing hung with beads and baubles of every conceivable kind. A carpeted ramp led to a heavily-curtained door cut into the side of the wagon.
“In there, huh?”
The gypsy nodded once. “Only you. The girl stays.” Jacquelyn made an unhappy sound while Marcus tapped his foot, hating this situation more by the second.
“Must I knock? Or say a secret magic phrase?”
Jacquelyn massaged her forehead. “If you weren’t the prince, I’d kick you.”
He was going to mention it was her fault he was here, but he decided that would be a bad move. He let out his frustration on his scalp before striding up to the wagon. The ramp creaked. He threw the curtains aside and stepped through the door.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness—then they started watering, the incense smoke was so thick. Through the haze, he could make out yet more baubles dangling from the ceiling: strings of finger bones, jewels, and miscellaneous trinkets. “Mirela?” he inquired into the haze.
“Your feet stir the waters,” said a deep female voice laced with melodrama, and a rolling accent to match, “yet you give no pause to see what lies beneath.” The gypsy Mirela’s form resolved itself out of the swirling smoke as she stepped from the shadows. She was a thick woman with almond-shaped eyes gleaming with intelligence. Dark curls protruded from a bandanna wrapped tight around her ears. “It is a thing all young men do. But you… you are to rule a nation. And so the waters you stir are the most perilous of all.” The fortune teller sat at a small round table and beckoned him to do the same.
It was a charade, Marcus knew, and his patience was strained. He sat, forcing himself calm. ??
?If I’m to rule this nation, then the waters are mine to stir, are they not?” he asked snidely.
He saw white teeth gleaming. “This may be. But only if the cards say so.” With that, she tapped the edge of a deck of cards on the table. “I have cast the tarot for you many times now, and each time, the same patterns have fallen. Your fate is a unique and tragic one—one which few as I have been fortunate enough to read. It is fascinating to me, and troubling, such that I am compelled to seek your presence. Would you hear the telling of your fate, Elessian?”
Marcus crossed his arms. He inhaled the incense deep, smothering a fresh bout of angst, and gave a single nod.
“So be it.” The woman began to shuffle. Her hands were deft and quick, her skill honed by a lifetime of practice. The cards flashed as they changed hands, flapped gently as the fortune teller drove them into wedges and bridges—cutting, re-cutting, spreading and closing again. She began, “Fate is a fixed thing: it is already written. Every man, great and small, is but a tiny part of a plan vast beyond imagining. Each is a pawn of the All-Seeing Eye, who is at once almighty and fickle, whose plan is never complete. The cards you see before you,” she flattened the deck between her palms, “provide the barest glimpse of your role in this grand scheme. Your role is the greatest I have yet seen, and the grimmest. Your fortune follows thus.”
With infinite care, Mirela placed three cards face-down in a neat row. They were flat, unadorned black. For the first time, Marcus felt a trace of apprehension. Mirela reached for the first and turned it, revealing a crudely-drawn wheel with eight spokes. “The wheel. Change. You have entered into a time of great upheaval in your life. The world in which you dwell, once familiar and comforting, has become a place of dread. You find that you can no longer discern right from wrong, friend from foe. It is not the world that has altered; rather, it is yourself. You have become your own worst enemy as your reckless youth battles the noble man you are destined to become.”
This was ridiculous. Of course this woman was playing him for a fool. How could she have not heard that his mother had died? Anyone could have guessed that his mind was not in the same place it was before.
Mirela flipped the next card. This time, a human hand was pictured—open-palmed and extended, as if for a handshake. “The palm inverted,” the fortune teller said somberly. “Betrayal. It is troubling that this card falls in conjunction with the wheel. Your mind’s upheaval has awakened you to the true nature of the world around you. You perceive, correctly, that this knowledge carries great danger—yet your natural arrogance blinds you to its full extent. Very soon, this unheeded threat will manifest itself. Beware.”
The nape of his neck tingled. He remembered this morning when he was walking to the Atrium, when Gail had argued heatedly that he should take another half dozen guards along. It was eerie to hear Gail’s worries vindicated, if only by a gypsy fraud.
“The betrayal is yours as well,” she continued without warning. “I see grief—guilt on your part. I see many a broken heart—in your recent past, and in the future as well. Women willingly give you their hearts, for they are enchanted by the nobility they perceive in your soul. Yet you are a man flawed; you will forsake them all, though you know not why. You will wander this trail of broken hearts until, at long last, you arrive upon the woman you are truly destined to love. This will be a truly great romance: a joining of souls. You will define each other in ways you cannot yet fathom. But your love for her will be tainted by guilt, for you will not easily forget your many sins.”
He frowned, making a mental note not to recite any of this for Jacquelyn. He still didn’t believe it, not quite, but she undoubtedly would.
This time, Mirela’s hand trembled as it overturned the final card.
He furrowed his brow, confused. The card’s face was identical to the reverse: pure black. He thought to ask if Mirela had stuck two opposing cards together by mistake, but then he saw her expression.
The fortune teller glanced him in the eyes, almost fearfully. She was disturbingly pale. “The void,” she whispered.
If this was an act, it was a very good one.
Mirela swallowed hard, deliberately avoiding looking at the card. “This is a dire tarot. I have read fate for fifty years, and not once have I drawn this. Not before you.”
“What is it?” Marcus asked, nervous despite himself.
“Doom. Doom of the worst kind. It swallows not just men, but nations. When I first read your tarot and saw this card, I needed to learn more. I drew many more, for many others. I will tell you, now, what I read: strife, war, chaos. Uncounted thousands will be put to the slaughter. Armies will clash unto their annihilation. It may take many years, but this nation will crumble, and with it, every nation in this circle of the world. The world will fall into darkness and the demons of the abyss will laugh with glee.”
Marcus grinned wryly. “That’s all? God, I thought this reading was going to be gloomy the whole way through.”
Then, quick as a serpent, Mirela’s hand darted across the table and fixed tight onto his wrist. He jumped, wincing as her long nails dug into his veins. “You must listen closely,” the fortune teller hissed, her black eyes intense as they stared into his. “Were you to perish in this event, your final card would have been just as all the rest: the skull, untimely death. This can have but one meaning: you will preside over the world’s ending. You have been given an unspeakably rare gift: true free will. You may use this will to avert this doom, but only if you follow the truest path. You are two men dwelling in one body. Only one may triumph; be sure it is the right one, lest we all perish. I have told you of the great romance in your future. Find this woman, and embrace her when you do. She is the only one who will mend the flaw in your soul, and you hers. Only together can you prevent the world’s ending. Do you understand?”
“Not in the slightest,” Marcus said, fighting back his laughter. “So,” he broke Mirela’s grip on his arm and stood, straightening his tunic, “how much do I owe you for this pleasure?” He glanced down at the cards on the table. They seemed unusually bright—a trick of the light, he supposed. Gilded tarot cards seemed the sort of thing a gypsy fraud would possess.
The woman wore a mournful face. “The spirits warned me you would not believe. I tried, regardless.” She sighed, stood as well. “You owe me nothing. You fate is read. You may leave.” Still refusing to look at the cards, she swept them into a pile and dropped them onto the flawlessly-stacked deck beside.
“My thanks.” With that, Marcus pushed back through the curtains. The darkness of the fortune teller’s wagon gave to orange sunlight. He had been in there longer than he had thought. Jacquelyn and Gail were looking at him expectantly while the rest of his guards remained scattered around the encampment, keeping a wary eye on the watching gypsies.
“What did she say?” Jacquelyn blurted. She was kneading her hands.
He grinned. “She said she foresaw a girl who’d force me to get my fortune read. She said I must flee her at once, if I am able.”
She laughed. “Shut up. Really though, what did she say?”
“If you keep on asking, I’m going to take your horse and leave you here with this lot,” he joked, indicating the creepily-staring gypsies. “Come on. Let’s get some dinner. I’m famished.”
“Me too!”
It was silent between them as they rode through the city—Marcus’s fault, mostly, as he tried his best to dismiss what the gypsy Mirela had told him. That should have been easy. Everything she had said could easily have been based on assumption. Of course he was still coping with his mother’s death. Naturally the court was filled with treachery. Certainly he saw many women; they practically flocked to him. And this business of war—well, it had been nearly eight hundred years since Ancel had campaigned across the land, and barely a quarter of those years had seen a measure of peace. War was never just likely: it was inevitable.
But the world’s ending—that was a tough thing to ignore.
He was s
o deep in thought that he forgot to conceal his unease. In the awkward silence, Jacquelyn couldn’t fail to notice. “She didn’t perturb you, did she?”
“Not nearly as much as you’re perturbing me,” Marcus said. He was flirting, and he could tell she enjoyed it.
“I just really want to know what she said! You’ve been so… in your element today. It’s sort of nice to see a chink in your armor. I kept on forgetting I’m with a boy, not just a prince.”
“True, that. I must be pretty intimidating,” he said in jest.
She giggled. “Well you are.” She thought for a moment. “I think I like it.”
Jacquelyn may have forgotten that he was the prince, but no one else had. People on their way home from their daily business paused in their tracks to call out greetings. They smiled, bowed, and waved, and Marcus acknowledged them just as he had been taught: with a smile and raised hand, friendly but dignified.
“Bless you, prince!” many cried, among similar greetings. “Lead on, m’lord,” one man shouted from his window. “I’ll follow ye!” To that, there were cheers of assent, though quiet.
“They love you,” Jacquelyn commented, suitably awed. “Do they always call out to you like this?”
Marcus kept smiling and waving as he replied, “Every time.”
“What’s it like?”
“Nice at first, but you get used to it.”
In contrast, Marcus’s reception at the palace was starkly cold. The Atrium was packed with bored courtiers and courtesans, lords and ladies of minor houses. They regarded him with straight mouths and narrowed eyes before turning away, nearly all of them. It was veiled hostility or cold indifference, little besides. Especially when they saw the young woman beside him—this anonymous girl with her intriguing jewelry and dress just mite too fashionable.
Who was she?
Whispers behind hands. She was outshining them somehow, and no woman tolerates such a slight—purposeful or not.
Marcus ignored them without much trouble, but he could feel Jacquelyn’s anxiousness in her grip on his elbow. “What are you in the mood to eat?” he asked, just to distract her.
She forced a smile as her hazel eyes darted around, trying and failing to meet the rude stares. “I don’t care. Whatever you feel like…”
Once they turned into the royal wing and left the Atrium behind, the air was noticeably lighter. Marcus stopped Jacquelyn, squeezed her hand. “Jacquelyn—”
“It’s alright. Don’t worry.”
“We should have gone another way.”
“Really, I’m fine. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said reassuringly. “I’m still hungry, you know.”
He thought it inappropriate to dine in his chambers, as he normally would have, so he took her to the kitchens instead. They encompassed the lowest floor of the palace—a network of stoves, sinks, and shelves, enough to amply feed a banquet of five hundred and more. The kitchens were a masterpiece, albeit rude on the eyes.
“This is charming,” Jacquelyn laughed.
A large woman in an apron and headscarf met them as soon as they stepped through the doors. “Well my lord Pilars, this is a pleasant surprise! Oh, and who is this?”
Marcus pulled Jacquelyn forward. “Jacquelyn, this is Martha, the head cook.”
“The kitchen queen, they call me,” Martha said.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Jacquelyn with a curtsy.
The woman beamed. “Well aren’t you charming! I must say, your highness, you’ve astonished me this fine evening. Normally you’ve a knack for finding the most horrid of bitches… Well, come along now, we’ll scrounge up something for the both of you… And you!” She pointed to the men-at-arms hovering discreetly in the background. “Find some corner and we’ll accommodate you eventually. And stay away from my girls, or I’ll take a cleaver to the lot of you!”
The men grinned at each other and made off toward the bakery, where they knew the prettiest servant girls worked.
Marcus and Jacquelyn were directed to a nook between three shelves stacked with dried meats and cheeses. Almost immediately, a quartet of servants placed two chairs and a table complete with settings. They even set a candle as Marcus seated Jacquelyn.
“This is amazing!” she said, looking around with delight.
“I thought you’d appreciate this sort of thing,” he agreed. Not too fancy, not too hole-in-the-wall.
Martha heard their preferences for food, and within a couple of minutes, the two of them sat in front of a pair of heaped plates and glasses of vintage wine.
The next hour was perhaps the first pleasant part of Marcus’s day. Jacquelyn was a natural conversationalist. She spoke her bit but was just as keen to hear what he had to say. She was quick to nod, and laughter came easily to her. It might have had something to do with the fact that her mother had once been a courtesan. She certainly had a courtesan’s mannerisms—that meticulous way of eating, the straightness of her back, the way she dabbed at her mouth between bites, though the food barely touched her lips.
Unlike a courtesan, though, she was entirely honest. Perhaps to a fault. The wine bottle was halfway drained when she asked out of nowhere, “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?”
He stopped in the act of wiping the gravy off his plate with a piece of bread. Slowly, he took a bite and said while he chewed, “What makes you ask?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I just want to know. I won’t tell anyone.” When he didn’t answer immediately, she blurted, “I’ll tell you something about me. The worst thing that ever happened to me… a year ago, there was a boy I liked. In Isenne. He was handsome and funny, and he seemed like he was interested in me, too. He invited me to a soiree one night at his house. There were a lot of people there, boys and girls our age. We were in separate rooms with our friends, and I worked up the courage to go talk to him finally… then one of my friends came out of the room he was in, and she told me, ‘Don’t talk to Clive. He’s betting all his friends that he can sleep with you by the end of the night.’”
Jacquelyn picked at her food sadly. “It was bad. I left. I cried for a long time. I wouldn’t talk to any of my friends. They knew how much I liked him. They heard everything he said, and they didn’t bother telling me. Only that one friend said anything. A month later, my father decided to move us to Ancellon, to help his business. They wanted to throw me a farewell soiree—him and my mother. I didn’t want to. I was too embarrassed. So… so we just left. And here I am.” She finally looked up at him, trying her best to smile. “That’s it. That’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Marcus kept her gaze, feeling sorry for her but at the same time thinking that it was nothing too serious. For a girl, it must have been terrible. For him, for a prince whom women chased without a care for the man he was on the inside, it was a fact of life—one he had never minded, because it got him bedded. It was stories like Jacquelyn’s that made him feel lucky to have been born a man. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he finally said.
“I know.” She started. “I’m not accusing you of doing what he did! Oh God. You must think I’m insane.”
“No, just drunk,” he smirked. “It’s alright. I really don’t mind.”
“Oh, good.” She sipped her wine, more tentatively this time. “So… what about you?”
He sat back in his chair, eyeing her as he mused. “That’s a tough one. My mother dying, I suppose.” But he didn’t want to talk about that. Too painfully recent. He hadn’t even figured it out enough to talk to anyone about it, much less a girl he was only just getting to know. That was what she was trying to do here, he knew. She wanted to know him, and him her.
He nodded. “Alright. See, you’re lucky, Jacquelyn. The worst thing that ever happened to you wasn’t your fault. Someone did it to you. There’s some comfort in that. The worst thing for me is when the blam
e is yours alone.” He focused on the shelf above the girl’s head as the recollection came to him.
“Every able Elessian lad undergoes the Novitiate after his eighteenth winter, as you well know. I’m sure your father’s told you about it. On the first day of spring, you leave your home and assemble outside the city gate with all the other lads who just came of age. You’ve got nothing, just the sackcloth pants and tunic that you got on your birthday. There were two-hundred and seventy of us outside the North Gate that morning. Everyone’s trying to joke and laugh even though they’re nearly soiling their pants. You know you’re going to be at Fort Arlimont until summer, and the next ninety days are going to be absolute hell. So you make as many friends as you can. Friends you can suffer with.
“Some people just stink at making friends. There was this one lad—Owen was his name. I only learned it after two weeks, he was so damned quiet. He was all tall and gangly. Looked like a spring drizzle would drown him. A lad like that has to work hard for respect. Only he didn’t. He barely said a word to anyone. When people tried to fight him, just to get him to show his bones, he just shut up and shrunk down. He had no bones. No one liked him. You felt bad, but you didn’t want to be associated with him.
“Anyway, they divided us into battle lines of about fifty lads. You train together—you suffer together like you’ve never suffered before. The sergeants leading you are the fellows who enlisted after their Novitiate—Royal Watch, the king’s men—so you know they’re rock hard bastards. They were veterans, every one of them. Most were missing a hand or a few fingers—just enough to stop them from going out on campaign. Just enough to make them bitter, angry sons of bitches.
“They acted like they hated us. In the morning, they drummed on the bunks with dull swords to wake us up, just to get us used to the sound of steel. If you didn’t wake up, they beat you with the flat of the blade until you could barely breathe—then they made you run around the fort’s outside. When you were finished, you still got to do the ‘review of the walls’ with everyone else, only you’d missed breakfast already. You run around the inside of the walls in formation. Then you run up the west tower, all forty feet of it, across the battlements, up and down every other tower and across every foot of Arlimont’s battlements. Then you circle the inside of the fort twice again. It was hellish, but you were used to it after the first month. You could even get through the day’s drills without puking.
“Not Owen. He fell out of formation every time, except one, maybe, but no one noticed that time except me. He wasn’t made for it. Didn’t gain any muscle—probably got skinnier, in fact. He puked during every battle drill, without fail. The sergeants were constantly looking for any excuse to punish us, and Owen was almost always the reason. No one liked him in the beginning. By the end, everyone despised him.
“Only a few lads recognized me, but everyone knew who I was within a day. They didn’t give me any trouble. They respected me because I could beat any of them in a fair fight, and I always pulled my weight. Most noble lads don’t do that. They whine and cry and act like they’re better than honest work. The sergeants, they knew who I was—they took it easy on me. I know they did. Everyone else in my squad got a lashing for one infraction or another—lowering your shield during battle drills, getting in fights, talking back to sergeants and officers, especially. That was the worst.
“Towards the end, I knew they weren’t going to give me any lashes. I couldn’t stand it. Everyone got at least one. Everyone. I didn’t want to be special. I wanted to prove I could take everything they could. So I started trying to win my lashes. I lowered my sword during drills. I didn’t polish my armor. I played dice, and won. I did everything I could, short of shaming myself in front of the other Novitiates. Nothing worked. The sergeants pretended they didn’t see me.
“On the last day, I still had no lashes. Everyone was in a good mood except me. They were going home as true Elessian men—as chevaliers. I was going home too, only in my mind, I hadn’t earned it. I hadn’t gotten my lashes.
“I was desperate. I did the only thing I hadn’t tried yet.
“When we were getting into formation for the Captain of the Fortress’s congratulatory speech, I called Owen out. I told him he was a yellow bitch—no balls, no bones, no nothing worth respecting. I said his mother was a whore. I said he didn’t deserve to be a chevalier, he had no honor. Any man would have fought me. Anyone would at least say something. He didn’t. He just stared at his feet. Everyone was watching us.
“I didn’t care. I was angry. If you saw me when I’m angry… it takes a lot to get me to that point, but once I boil over, I’m gone. I let loose. I shoved Owen, hard. He didn’t do anything still, and it made me angrier, so I backhanded him—gauntlet and all. His cheek was dripping blood but he just stared at me, like he wanted me to beat him.
“I did. I hit him and hit him until he was on the ground in a ball, then I dared him to get up, and when he did, I put him back down. He got up twice more before the sergeants fought their way through the other lads watching us. By that time, I’d broken his nose and an eye socket. Blood everywhere. He never even threw a punch.”
Marcus’s fists were clenched in his lap, so Jacquelyn wouldn’t see. He didn’t know why he was telling her this. She must have thought him a madman. But he continued, hollowly, “I got my lashes. Three of them. That’s it.” A dispirited chuckle rose and died in his throat. “I beat him within an inch of his life in front of the garrison commander, in front of everyone, even though he’d never done a thing to harm me or anyone else… three lashes.” He shook his head with a bitter smile. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been sorry ever since. I sent the finest chirurgeon in the city, three golden strikes—that’s three years’ pay for a full-fledged chevalier—even wrote an apology. He sent all three back. I think he may be more ashamed of what happened than I ever could be.”
He looked up. Jacquelyn’s wide eyes stared back; she had covered her mouth with one hand. He smiled at her, sadly. “That’s it. That’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
She lowered her hand. Her mouth was open. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t…” She swallowed. “You’re sorry. You did your best to amend. Whether he forgave you or not is his business.”
“That’s what eats at me most… I think he did forgive me.” Marcus drank a solid gulp of wine. He was sorry he had ever brought this up. The memory of it was more disturbing for him than it ever could be for her.
She watched him, quiet. “I think you’re a good person.”
He remembered what Mirela had told him.
Women willingly give you their hearts, for they are enchanted by the nobility they perceive in your soul.
“I’m not.”
“But you are,” she persisted. “What you did was terrible, yes, but… but you know it was wrong. You did your best to make it right. That’s more than most other people would do. Everyone does terrible things to other people. You’re being sorry makes you a better man.”
“I think it would be better if I didn’t do terrible things to begin with.”
“Well.” She smiled. “No one’s perfect.”
“True, that.” He returned the expression. “Well, my thanks for not getting up and leaving.”
They sat there looking at each other, ruminating on what they had learned about each other. Marcus appreciated what Jacquelyn had shown him. He saw a young woman who had been stepped on—and stepped over—all her life. Yet miraculously, despite it all, she refused to judge anyone else. She had made light of the very worst of his deeds.