How Many of Them Still Live
The maid glared at her and grumbled in a sharp, irritable voice. Elona hurried to excuse herself.
“I’m sorry. I’m still not used to the spices…”
“Ha. A slave, and she has the nerve…”
Still muttering, the maid gathered the dishes and made to leave. Elona caught her in a rush.
“Um… what am I supposed to do today?”
“Do?”
The maid stared at her as if she had said something absurd.
“Didn’t you hear what His Majesty ordered? You’re a bedchamber slave. Serve him properly at night, and that’s the end of it. Stop playing at being a servant. Sleep through the day.”
“What? But…”
“There’s a banquet tonight, another tomorrow, and one every night for a week. Yesterday you couldn’t even hold a wine bottle properly. Practice that, if you must do something.”
With that parting shot she left the room. Alone, Elona looked around the bare bedchamber, at a loss. What am I supposed to do here by myself? It was worse than the West Tower. There, at least, maids had come by now and then to talk with her. The food had been poor, but all of it had suited her, and the room had held books to read and knitting to keep her hands busy. But here…
She stepped out onto the sunlit balcony. The moment the people working in the garden met her eyes, they yanked their hats down, recoiling as if they had seen something they should not. Will I even be able to live like this?
Uneasy, she went back to the bed. She had slept poorly the night before, and the fatigue of crossing the desert still clung to her. Unable to do anything else, she drifted in and out of sleep.
Time crawled by, dull and dreadful as a prison.
“Lady Irid!”
“Over here!”
The victory feast went on from the day before. Irid Padisha, court steward, crossed the hall with an elegant step toward the cluster calling her name. Young noblemen and noblewomen of Ashatra looked up at her with expectant eyes.
“His Majesty has returned at last. He’ll take the palace in hand in earnest now, won’t he?”
“Of course he will. A mere court steward could never presume to fathom his intentions.”
“So modest. A post is only a post. It won’t be long before you’re queen, Lady Irid.”
“Oh, don’t say that. Nothing has been decided yet.”
Yet. The young people who lived on gossip fastened on the word and watched her reaction with bright, hungry interest. Irid leisurely savored their anticipation and lifted her gaze toward the throne. Just as yesterday, a crowd had gathered around the Sindar King, home from the war he had ended. I wanted to set the mood last night. He simply will not yield.
She drank and thought of the time they had been alone. That splendid body, that low voice, those cold eyes—her heart fluttered all over again.
But he had left her and gone to the Slave Princess of Parsion.
“Oh, that Slave Princess. Is she truly living in Mano Palace? In the queen’s own bedchamber?”
Some noblewoman, blind to the moment, brought up Elona. Irid swallowed a surge of irritation and forced a smile.
“Yes, that is how it was arranged. Palace custom does not allow anyone else into His Majesty’s bedchamber. There is nowhere suitable in the Main Palace to house a slave, and it would be a nuisance for His Majesty to go all the way elsewhere, wouldn’t it?”
“Heavens. How often does he mean to take her, keeping her that close…”
The vulgar joke set the nobles around them laughing. Irid wanted to laugh along, but anger was creeping up on her. The woman who had amused them all, oblivious to what lay beneath the smile, only grew more extravagant.
“And what if that Slave Princess suddenly gets with child? A body is all she has to trust in. She’ll do anything to claw out a way to survive.”
“Oh, come now. A pregnancy? That’s a bit…”
By then an uneasy current was running through the laughter. Irid did not miss her chance.
“You ought to watch your tongue. If that Slave Princess conceives, the child would be a slave’s, not a king’s. A bastard of that sort?”
“Y-yes… I suppose so?”
Once Irid’s mood soured, the nobles scrambled, too late, to read her face. She closed her mouth and glared toward where Elona stood. There was no life in the girl’s face, and every gesture was hopelessly clumsy, yet the king kept the wench faithfully at his side.
How long must that Slave Princess be allowed to live? The Sindar King would give Irid her answer.
A tedious day passed, and night came at last.
Elona sat at Kazan’s side as she had the day before, attending him. On the second night of the feast, new faces had multiplied.
“Your Majesty, it is an honor to meet you at last. As for our house…”
“I come on behalf of the eastern mining guild, with a matter to lay before Your Majesty. If you might spare a moment…”
Dozens came in a single day, announced unfamiliar names, discussed tangled affairs of state in flattering tones, and departed.
Elona had never studied the art of kingship, nor had she ever handled the business of a realm. Merely listening to the flood of talk left her dizzy and overwhelmed. So many difficult matters, and Kazan doesn’t look troubled at all.
By the second day she had grown a little used to serving. With a bit of room to breathe, she watched closely how he received each petitioner.
To her eyes, he seemed to hold an answer of his own for every problem in Ashatra. Military affairs, of course, but law and economy as well, the relations between houses, the scramble of factions over their interests. There was no hesitation in the way he answered every question. Until he was twenty, Kazan was in Parsion with me. He didn’t die seven years ago, so did he go back to Ashatra after that day?
While she wasted seven years locked in the tower, he must have lived an entirely different life.
He had been a prince to begin with. Had he joined hands with some noble house to fight the civil war? She had heard there were many princes in Ashatra. How fierce had the war he fought been?
What kind of life had he lived until now?
While she wondered, another visitor came to the Sindar King: a man in his fifties who moved with difficulty. Helped up to the high seat by a servant, he looked exceedingly dignified and rich.
Kazan saw him and offered a faint smile.
“Duke Omar. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you at a banquet.”
“I trust you have been well, Your Majesty. I hope my boy caused you no trouble on the field.”
“Trouble? Hardly. General Zahak distinguished himself more than anyone.”
So he was some general’s father. The splendid dress, the refined speech, the envious looks around him—everything marked him as high nobility. Kazan’s tone grew a little more courteous. Is the house so great that even a king must show respect?
When Elona stared, Duke Omar felt her gaze and glanced at her. The wrinkled eyes that had seemed only kindly narrowed at once with displeasure.
“You brought back spoils from Parsion. Alive, no less.”
The excessive coldness startled her, and she dropped her eyes. She ought to have grown used to blame by now, yet Duke Omar’s look was not like the others.
Deep grudge and rage lay in those cloudy purple eyes. If the rest hated Parsion only vaguely, he seemed to have a concrete reason.
Then Kazan parried the remark in a light tone.
“A woman has to be alive if a man means to enjoy her. You’ve always taken me for an ascetic, but I’m not averse to women. I simply can’t indulge as freely as Zahak.”
“Don’t tell me the boy carried on like that even in the field. Is that why he still hasn’t come home?”
“Surely not. He is still carrying out my orders…”
Fortunately the talk turned to Duke Omar’s son. Elona let out a breath of relief and fixed her attention on serving Kazan. This was an important guest; the conversation would run long, and she felt as if she were sitting on a cushion of thorns.
As she had expected, Duke Omar brought up one new subject after another without pause.
“That reminds me. I recently had word of Prince Shativ’s maternal family. They are hiding in a small village in the south.”
Kazan’s hand, lifting his cup, faltered. Prince Shativ—as if that name had caught him by the nape.
“…How many of the bereaved are still alive?”