18. Ehmet stews.
eighteen
Ehmet stews.
“ E hmet, we need to speak.” His mother rapped on his office door before sidling in and locking it behind her.
“Now?” He didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not now, not at any point at all that day. It was precisely why he’d tucked himself away in the tower room, planning to avoid every single event his mother had scheduled. He’d made it to late afternoon, blissfully undisturbed and left to wallow in his own thoughts. He’d even taken a break from wallowing long enough to pen a note to the town council in Rohilavol to check in on the status of street repairs and propose a springtime festival in the lower district. This sanctioned affair would complement that which popped up each summer. He hoped to help that baker turned games administrator with his new roof, and infuse the economy further.
“Yes, now.” She took a seat in one of the chairs across from his desk and rubbed her temples, sighing.
Ehmet wondered if his mother knew what had happened with Lady Hevva. He hadn’t noticed any of the dowager’s spies, but again—that was sort of how they operated. “What is it, mother?”
“It’s your uncle.”
“What’s he done now?”
“It seems he is using this house party to conduct meetings with his friends right under our noses. ”
“Did you not expect this? Did your beloved spies not expect this?”
“I did.” She pursed her lips. “However, I did not expect him to be so bold as to meet with the barons of Turkhane and Kashuvol while both were guests in our home.”
Ehmet nodded, though he wasn’t surprised. The two lords had likely been updating the Duke of Kashoorcih on what they’d learned from Ehmet at the symposium, which was nothing of importance. “I’ve been careful around both.”
“Good. But Ehmet, it is not enough anymore to be careful; you must be proactive. My spies have informed me that Yusuf has earned the support of the Baron of Napivol. And it has been confirmed that he also has an arrangement with the Duke of Rohapavol.”
Ehmet cursed under his breath—perhaps he did need his own team of sleuths. He hadn’t realized Yusuf had made such progress. When he saw her at the symposium, and here at the party, the Duchess of Rohapavol seemed friendly, a fan even. But then again, she wasn’t the voting party, her husband was. Sure, some of the nobles were put out by his progressive ideas, but angry enough to join the usurper? Something was off. “Blackmail?”
“That is suspected.” The dowager queen looked around his office, eyeing the bookshelves and drapery, the tables and hearth. She turned her gaze back to Ehmet and drew her brows together. “Don’t you have anything to drink in here?”
He chuckled, retrieved a decanter and two snifters, and poured out a finger for each of them.
His mother tutted at him, so he added a splash to her glass before handing it over.
As they sipped their drinks, Ehmet thought through the situation with Great-Uncle Yusuf. Why the blasted duke couldn’t just die already was beyond him. With the system in Selwas, each holding could vote one time in one direction, but the value of said ballot varied based on rank. He, as king, counted as four votes. Each dukedom counted as three, earldoms as two, and baronies as one on matters of the realm. Furthermore, in an effort to prevent imperialism or insurrection, the law stated those who held more than one title, through marriage or otherwise, could only cast a ballot under their highest rank.
His slimy uncle had managed to get everyone but the Earl of Midlake, the Duke of Stormhill, and the Countess of Kabuvirib on his side. Obviously, Nekash, as the Duke of Serkath, would support Ehmet if anything was put to a vote for a total of seven on their side. And, with the added support of Lord Yaranbur, Lord Kahoth, and Hevva, he had fourteen to Yusuf’s eleven.
Ehmet hoped to the gods that he could still count on Hevva in this matter even if she wanted nothing to do with him otherwise. Perhaps if he begged, she would also help him by ensuring her father supported the crown, should Yusuf force the matter to a referendum.
The dowager queen waited as the king thought through the issue at hand. She helped herself to a healthy portion of his brandy, filling her glass in several glugs.
“Oh, Gods.” He massaged his aching head and exhaled heavily. The icy press of reality numbed his fingers and toes, and his heart crushed under the weight of it all.
“Yes, if you lose either of Lord Yaranbur’s or Lady Hevva Tilevir’s votes, you will lose your crown. That’s not even considering Stormhill and his three, but I believe he's is on your side.”
Yes, sure. He couldn’t breathe deeply enough to eke out any words to his mother. Because, if Hevva married him, she’d lose her vote as Countess of Kabuvirib, no matter which course she took. If she chose to retain her title in addition to Queen, her earldom’s two votes would be moot. If she decided to pass the title to Lord Kas instead, it would revert to her father until the young lord’s eighteenth birthday, thus those votes would still disappear for the next five years.
It didn’t matter that Hevva had rejected him. He couldn’t marry her, even if she had agreed.
“I need to think about what to do.”
His mother nodded and stood from her chair. “I believe your best course of action, at this point, is to ensure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have Midlake, Kabuvirib, and Stormhill firmly in hand. ”
Obviously, mother. But Ehmet let her leave the room without issuing a response. When she had gone, he filled his snifter to the brim, drank it down, and refilled it. Then, King Hethtar lowered his head in his hands and wept.
I t was the worst day of his life. She didn’t want him, he desperately wanted her, and his fucking duty was determined to keep them apart. If he didn’t love his people so gods damned much, Ehmet would grovel on his knees before Hevva, and beg her to reconsider. Sure, he wasn’t offering true love, or whatever bullshit she seemed to believe in, but he thought she was fun . They were friends! Maybe she would reconsider, and then they could run off together after he lost the crown to Yusuf.
King Yusuf Hethtar the Fifth, what a dumb fucking name that would be. His money mongering would surely ruin the kingdom. As he’d confirmed in conversation with the Gulans, Lord Yusuf Hethtar was barely scraping by at running the single city of Kashoorcih, and even that wasn’t without the consistent oversight of Ehmet, and his father before him. He couldn’t let him take Selwas.
Pacing the length of his apartments, Ehmet stewed. His mother, gods bless her, picked up on his sour attitude and made his excuses at dinner. Tonight was a moonlit picnic on the grounds. Floating flames held aloft by the fire mages on his staff dotted the south lawn, illuminating the affair. The lilting tones of a string quartet drifted in through Ehmet’s open balcony doors.
He slammed them shut sharply and yanked the curtains closed.
He would’ve gone, if Hevva was going to be there. But Parosh let Ehmet know the lady was under the weather and would be taking supper in her chambers. His manservant had gleaned the information from Aylin herself, who’d made it very clear Lady Tilevir was not feeling well, and absolutely no one should bother her on that night. Ehmet’s unflappable servant had turned up, flapped, to deliver the news. Parosh also bore a wet spot on his shirt from where the lady’s maid had poked him with a firm jet of water, to make her point.
The king sighed when he heard the news, for he’d been hoping to speak with Hevva. But he would have to wait until the following day, because Ehmet was not about to risk Aylin’s scalding water magic to try and speak with a woman who had no interest in talking to him in the first place. His stomach clenched and his heart throbbed as he thought of how very wrong everything had been going of late.
An oppressive silence cloaked his suite as he paced the salon, wading through the mire of his own tumult. Soft scratching broke through the quiet and he turned in the direction of the noise, expecting to see a mouse or other such critter. The side entrance to his apartments was located at the end of the darkened hall off the sitting room. There, a scrap of parchment shone brightly upon the dark parquet floor.
Ehmet loped over and plucked up the odd missive. Returning to his salon, the room brightened by candlelight, he folded open the page and read:
Whilst another trip ’round the sun is celebrated, at the end of the first set, join me in the winning and losing carambole?
Let us speak, and perhaps dance a waltz of our own making. I shall await you there, in a dress of salmon, might you wish to feast, upon a table of green velvet.
Well—he read the note again—that was a turn of events. He hadn’t expected to hear from Hevva yet, she had seemed so...put off by him the night before.
The small spark of hope that threatened to heal Ehmet’s pained heart was snuffed out by the unyielding weight of duty. It didn’t matter what they wanted, it didn’t matter if she changed her mind.
They couldn’t marry .
Releasing a cry of frustration, Ehmet crumpled the note and tossed it into the low fire in his hearth. Scrubbing his hands against his hair, he stomped to the bar where he poured himself two fingers of whiskey.
A deep internal debate had him caught between going to the billiards room after the first set, or not. The king found that pacing was no longer helping to calm his roiling thoughts. He established a new route that took him around the perimeter of the sitting room. He was on his fifteenth lap, for he found counting helped to calm him, when a series of thuds sounded on the door.
“Enter,” Ehmet barked, pausing beside the door to his bedchamber.
His brother ducked in and sealed the door behind him. The prince pleated his brow at the state of the king as he eyed him across the expansive space.
Ehmet glanced down at his untucked shirt with its misaligned buttons, and his lack of footwear, and shrugged. He took a swig of whiskey before resuming his course.
As he rounded the room and came up on the prince, Nekash scoffed. “Mother said you were in a bad way. Come, let’s go to the training room. It’s been a while.”
“No.” He was too furious, enraged, confused, frustrated...Ehmet feared he would kill his brother if he took him up on the offer. “Another time.”
“Fine.” Nekash helped himself to a drink from the king’s private collection while Ehmet completed another two laps. Then, the prince set pace beside his elder brother, for a time.
The trail the king had carved out was wide enough for one, and Nekash kept banging into furniture. So, after one stubbed toe too many, he parted ways with Ehmet and flopped down onto a settee. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Yusuf and other things,” Ehmet ground out.
“What’s our bloody uncle done now?”
He looped the room a few more times as he updated his brother on the Duke of Kashoorcih’s recent dealings.
Nekash reached the same conclusion their mother had made, or perhaps he’d already known. For all his faults, he was an intelligent man. “If Mum’s spies are correct, and Yusuf has swung Rohapavol and Napivol, we have fourteen votes, and Yusuf has eleven. So, if you lose Lord Kahoth and Stormhill, Lady Hevva Tilevir and Kabuvirib, or Lord Yaranbur and Midlake, we’re done.”
“Precisely.”
“Well, shit.” He rolled off the couch to stand, and cracked his neck, before thumping back down into the seat. “I’m mad too.”
“There’s more.”
“What?”
Ehmet wasn’t sure what prompted it, but suddenly, he was unloading everything that had happened over the past month, since meeting Hevva at the symposium to his failed proposal the night before. He did spare his brother some of the finer details, including their secret personas. “She said, ‘What of love?’”
“No!? What did you say?”
“I said something about how love doesn’t make for a successful marriage.”
Nekash slapped his knee with his free hand. “Quite right, brother. Quite right. We should know.” He took a long drink of his liquor.
“Precisely.” With the weight on his chest somewhat diminished, Ehmet halted his steps and sat on a chair across from Nekash.
“Love causes nothing but trouble. Best to take what you need. I find that the mutually beneficial sort of agreements are best. Why do you think I keep so many ladies in waiting?” The prince finished his drink, and took his glass, along with Ehmet’s, to the bar for refilling.
“Yes, and love is so far from mutually beneficial.” The king chuckled darkly, visions of childhood flickering in his mind. “It’s lopsided.”
“Like Dad with Mum.” Nekash returned with their drinks.
“Dad felt everything too strongly. Do you remember when he punched that maid?” Ehmet asked, swirling his whiskey.
“Which time? The tooth thing, or the delegation?”
“I was thinking about the delegates from the Newand Principality. I forgot about the tooth thing—not permanently, just for a moment there.” He shook his head against the onslaught of unpleasant memories. Conversing about it always seemed to help.
“Poor Mum.”
“With the tooth situation? Poor Mum? Poor Yasmin! Dad knocked her damn molar out!”
“Yes, obviously I feel bad for her. It was a loose tooth already.”
“She was twelve!”
“True. True. But do you recall how Mum went to stand from the table to help Yasmin and—”
“Dad yanked her back down by her hair. Yes...I remember.” Ehmet sighed, not adding the additional details aloud. They both remembered how the former king pulled his wife down so hard her head cracked against the arm of his chair, blood spattering their father’s pristine cravat, enraging him further. That was the night the young princes learned they could not cry in front of King Hethtar the Third, or they’d have their teeth knocked out too.
“He was tough on everyone, but the worst on Mum.”
“True,” he agreed. “Never?”
“ Never .” Nekash nodded solemnly.
It was a regular pact they renewed, the lengthy words of which hadn’t been needed in years. They would never lose their temper in such a fashion, they would never hit a child, or a woman, or anyone unprovoked. They would never lose themselves to paranoia. They would never be like Dad.
“Do you recall when he decided Mum was having an affair with the last Baron of Kashuvol?” Nekash balled his hand into a fist.
“Gods, that was insane. She’d only spoken to him for all of ten minutes at my birthday celebration.”
“Ten minutes too many. I thought Dad was going to murder the baron.”
“Kashuvol had no idea what was happening.” Ehmet scrubbed his hand through his hair.
“Mum never made it to supper.”
“I know. I was far too old for it, but I brought her a slice of cake that night and slept in her bed. ”
Nekash’s brows pulled together. “You never told me that.”
Ehmet shrugged. “Too old to be embarrassed by it anymore.”
“You shouldn’t have been then. She’s our mother . He beat her.”
“I know.” He sighed. “But I was. You know how it is to be a boy of fourteen.”
“Do I ever. Still am, in some ways.”
The king chuckled wearily. That was certainly an astute self-observation.
Together, in a rare show of camaraderie sans needling, the brothers continued to recollect the darker parts of their upbringing in the palace. They rehashed the rage their father held toward all of them, servants and family alike. They recalled the man’s constant paranoia, and how their beloved mother wasn’t even permitted to travel without escorts of her husband’s choosing. They drained their glasses while remembering the way he beat her down, all in the name of love.
This time, Ehmet refilled their cups. Inevitably, they revisited their pact, reaffirming with drunken gusto that they would never ever be anything like father. They would never do that to another person. Nekash might be a bit pushy, but never would he force his love, and neither would Ehmet.
The king took the opportunity to chastise the prince for being far too handsy with Lady Tilevir on the party’s first night.
“I didn’t realize you’d laid claim to her,” Nekash grumbled.
“Laid claim? Gods, man, we’re talking about a woman, not a piece of land.”
He rolled his eyes.
“I’m being quite serious, Nekash. You cannot treat people in such an objectifying manner. Not only is it morally reprehensible, you’re also the fucking prince. Act like the gentleman you’re meant to be, or I’ll force you in line.” Authority threaded his tone, a rare occurrence when addressing his brother.
“Understood.” A flash of contrition softened Nekash’s features, confirming Ehmet’s point landed.
“Good. Rest assured, I am not above punishing the prince. ”
A cheeky gleam shimmered in the scoundrel’s eye. He pumped his brows. “Would you spank me, Ehmmy?”
It was Ehmmy’s turn to roll his eyes.
As their cathartic conversation drew to a close, the king found himself opening up to the prince about another issue: the note.
“She wants to meet tomorrow night, during your party. I’m not certain...” he trailed off into the rim of his glass.
Nekash smirked. “You go, that’s what you do. You can escape during my birthday celebration. Fates, even I can escape a masquerade ball with none the wiser.”
“Fine, I’ll meet with her.” Ehmet swigged the rest of his glass and slammed it down.
“You know you wanted to. You didn’t need my permission.” The prince winked.
He frowned at his brother and wondered if, perhaps, he should have kept some details to himself.
Nekash sipped his liquor and reclined on the settee. “After you’ve come and riled up the masked ladies, you can depart for your rendezvous unimpeded. I will swoop in and happily pick up your scraps.” A glint of something mischievous shimmered in his brother’s eye.
Ehmet merely shook his head in disapproval.