John Fultz: Seven Kings

The eastern wing of the hall was covered with black sand, forming a small arena where tonight’s combatants would shed one another’s blood. Four flaming braziers sat about the sandy area, each of them fronting two spearmen in polished breastplates. These eight guards would ensure the gladiators did not flee. It would be a fight to the death, the winner gifted with the Kings’ mercy. An ancient rite of justice, one that Tyro had revived only recently. Lyrilan’s protests had been powerless to prevent it. Now he must endure the blood spectacle.

Ramiyah waited between two pillars, standing apart from the mass of courtesans and revelers who streamed into the hall in their best satins and gemstones. A trio of serving girls stood at her back, having dressed her in a slim gown of crimson trimmed with amber thread. Her golden hair fell like a mantle of silk to the middle of her back, and her neck bore a collar of emerald and jet, a gift from Lyrilan on their wedding night two years ago. Diamonds hung from her seashell ears, and the nails of her fingers were perfect as red almonds.

She was Yaskathan, born and bred in that southern kingdom of tall ships, vast orchards, and year-long heat. The closeness of the drought did not bother her, only the dry spell of her husband’s attention. Yet that long season was over. Her eyes fell upon Lyrilan, blue as northern ice, yet warm as sunrays. She rushed toward him as he entered through the grand arch. The guards slowed their pace so as not to intrude upon the happy reunion.

Lyrilan wrapped his arms about Ramiyah with a sigh of relief. Her first look had said, I waited for you in perfect faith. Twice now he had abandoned her for his scrolls and inks and quills. Two books written and two periods of loneliness that his wife had borne with the patience of a Goddess. He inhaled the lilac scent of her hair, the jasmine sweetness of her neck. He kissed pink lips, caressed warm brown skin.

“Gods of Earth and Sky-how I’ve missed you,” Lyrilan told her.

“Is it finished?” she asked.

He nodded. “Volomses is reading it now. I am returned to the land of the living.” He smiled, and she caught his joy in her own face, sending it back to him like a reflection in silvered glass.

He looked beyond the bobbing heads and bared shoulders of the assembled courtiers. His brother had noticed his arrival. Tyro raised his right hand in greeting, while his left lay firmly in the grip of the Lady Talondra. The Brother Kings sent their smiles across the hall like messengers’ arrows aimed at one another.

“Let us dine,” said Lyrilan, leading Ramiyah toward the board. The horde of courtesans and fools spread apart like rainbow-hued water, and the royal couple walked between two aisles of bowing and kneeling nobles. Servants stopped in their tracks, food steaming on great oval trays, wine sloshing in fresh decanters, until Lyrilan approached his seat.

At the opposite end of the table, much farther from his brother than he would have liked, a second dais rose to support Lyrilan’s throne and its companion seat. He assisted his wife as she ascended the three steps to her chair. When she was safely nestled on a velvet cushion there, he sat himself unceremoniously upon the throne. Now he stared across the heaped board and the two hundred guests directly at Tyro. The Twin Kings sat above their courtiers on platforms of equal height. Like the identical crowns, the twin thrones showed the equality of the two monarchs. Pairs of servants cooled both of the royal couples by wafting great feathered fans made from the feathers of Mumbazan ostriches.

Talondra stared with tigerish eyes at Ramiyah. The two women were nothing alike. Talondra’s raven-black hair set her apart, as did her unrestrained curls. Her eyes, like Ramiyah’s, were blue, yet Talondra’s eyes were cold. They reminded Lyrilan of the glistening snowdrifts between the Grim Mountains, and the perilous crossing he and Tyro had made eight years ago.

Talondra was a child of Shar Dni, yet her family had sent her here a year before that city fell to horror and war. Her loathing of Khyrei and its pale peoples was already a legend among the court. Rumors said that she had tortured to death with her own hands a Khyrein spy found in the palace three years ago. Her constant influence had utterly ruined any Uurzian merchant families who claimed a trace of Khyrein blood. No matter that most of those hapless fools had never set foot in Khyrei themselves. Talondra would never be satisfied until Tyro led the Legions of Uurz south to conquer the jungle kingdom.

Tyro wanted war with Khyrei as a matter of honor; Talondra wanted vengeance, raw and bloody and bitter on the tongue. This made her far more dangerous than he. Lyrilan was not the only member of the court to recognize this uncomfortable truth.

The Brother Kings were seated just far enough apart that conversation would be impossible. If they wished to discuss some matter, they must send servants to carry their words around the table like honeyed pastries. Lyrilan noted the presence of Lord Mendices without surprise. The tall hawk-nosed warrior with the shaven skull and oiled beard was not dressed in his customary bronze mail and plate, but wore instead a nobleman’s green-gold toga, a wreath of grape leaves twined about his narrow skull. His dark eyes scanned the board, making mental note of all those present, assessing each personality for its usefulness in his palace schemes. Rubies glimmered on his fingers like drops of blood. Of all the courtiers at table, Mendices sat closest to Tyro, as he loomed large in the Sword King’s private councils.

A trio of musicians began to play on harp, pipe, and lute, signifying the start of the festivities. The assembled People of the Court fell to feasting with hearty abandon, staining their lips with red wine and greasy gooseflesh. Only the unmarried women held back, nibbling at dainty bits of food, filling their slim bellies with drink that made them lightheaded and prone to bouts of giggling. Servants brought Lyrilan and Ramiyah platters of food and goblets of wine, holding them steady as living tables while the Scholar King and his wife dined. Across the mass of feasters, Talondra fed Tyro strips of pink meat with her own supple fingers.

Ramiyah spoke of a trip to Murala, possibly a sea cruise to Mumbaza. Like Lyrilan’s mother, she loved to sail on the great Uurzian galleys. Lyrilan made no promises, but nodded. Perhaps it was time for a few days away from this court with its stifling formalities and increasingly barbaric entertainments. A page boy approached and brought him word from the table’s far end.

“Majesty,” the page bowed, “your brother bids you welcome. King Tyro rejoices to see you come down from your lonesome tower. His love for you has turned to worry over your well-being.”

Lyrilan smiled. “Tell my brother that I missed him too. But this night belongs to my Ramiyah. I will speak with him tomorrow, if he will, in the Garden of Memory.”

The servant bowed again and carried his message around the teeming table to the seat of Tyro. Tyro nodded and turned to share his thoughts with Talondra. The dark-haired Queen looked not in Lyrilan’s direction, but focused only on Tyro. She could exert an iron influence over his deeds. Lyrilan had learned this the hard way, as she pulled his brother further and further away from him during the last four years.

In some way the brotherly bond had been shattered on the day of Tyro’s wedding. Was this only natural for brothers? As twins, the two boys had shared a special intimacy while growing, one that endured despite their separate natures. Each supplied strength where the other displayed weakness. Lyrilan often prayed to the Four Gods that the bond of twins was not broken, only muted. Yet he, too, had often pulled away from his brother. When he was consumed in the research and composition of a new book, he turned away from all companions. Even his wife. He squeezed Ramiyah’s hand and silently swore to find a greater balance between his writing, his relationships, and his Kingship.