Chapter II #2
Of course she had. It was only she, among all the court, who seemed to see the flaw in Orden that the Priest had recognized since childhood.
Who seemed to realize that as of yet, Honoria’s king had never learned that someone might willingly serve and suffer for him while their loyalty lay elsewhere.
Neither the queen nor the Priest were eager to be first to teach their king that lesson.
“And do you remember what I said to you, the day I came back from the war in Vesper?” the Priest asked. Another comment directed more to Hadrian, who let out a small grunt of disapproval from his place at Mortis’s altar.
“Of course,” the king answered. Stepping closer, he draped a careless arm over the Priest’s shoulders, and the Priest fought back an urge to pull away.
“You walked into the castle courtyard half-dead and shouting for me, and when I came out, you said if I’d wanted your eyes, I need only have asked—that you’d have plucked them out and offered them to me on a platter.
Then you swore by the gods you’d be Priest to my King, and see my line established in Honoria.
It was magnificent, little brother. You were magnificent. ”
At Orden’s words, the Priest’s distaste alchemized into satisfaction. It never hurt to remind the king where his allegiances ought to lie, nor Hadrian of the regard Honoria’s sovereign held for his Priest.
“You’re the best of Priests.” The conviction in Orden’s voice pleased his more reserved brother. Better the king’s boundless affection than his unbridled wrath. “And Ariana’s the best of queens. I’ve been more fortunate in my family than any other Inver.”
The last was a bald warning to Hadrian. Orden sometimes surprised the Priest by offering such sharp corrections to his counselors—much of the time, the king seemed genial and unaware of the machinations of his conniving and spiteful court.
Then, in a flash, he’d reveal unexpected insight, and a will of tempered steel.
“Fortunate in your family indeed,” the Priest murmured. “Yet whatever I was and am, whatever loyalty I hold, I think your wife is trying to outdo me.”
“Will the gods spare her, do you think? Forget what Hadrian says, I want the word of my Priest.” For the first time, the Priest could hear worry in his brother’s voice. He’d have liked Orden the better for it, were it not for the grudge he carried.
“If our gods are watching and care for me at all, they’ll see to it she lives,” the Priest said with sudden fervor.
“I’ve shed my own blood on each of their altars every day since I learned that she was with child again.
I know how you care for her. I know what it will mean to you, to have a worthy heir, and to see your line assured. ”
What he did not say was that he’d learned of the queen’s pregnancy weeks before Orden had.
She’d come to him first, because she was terrified and wanted reassurance, and to make every offering possible at the nameless hearth goddess’s altar, save for a sacrifice of blood.
The Priest had made that himself, on her behalf.
A weight lifted from the Priest as Orden removed his arm and went back to Tyrus’s altar.
“My turn for a sacrifice, then,” the king said.
“May I ask why your guard Tavian is serving that purpose?” The Priest could not hide his curiosity.
Even after a lifetime together, Orden still did things that he found incomprehensible at first glance.
The king’s guards were handpicked, all of them seeming to view their master with devotion bordering on adulation.
It was strange that Orden would choose one of his own men.
“Tavian here killed a woman,” the king said.
Small sounds whispered in the dark, and the Priest could see it all in his mind—Orden positioning himself behind the disgraced guard, picking up the knife, pulling the man’s head back by his hair.
Hadrian had resumed his prayers, discreetly droning away as if he was not paying the closest possible attention to his king’s words and actions.
“Not for any sort of gain, either. Had it been for vengeance or to line his coffers, I might have overlooked it. What Inver doesn’t have a taste for conquest?
But she was nothing and no one—just a doxy who displeased him.
There’s no glory in that. No honor. So I cut out his tongue, as he cut out hers, and now I will cut his throat as well.
Blood for blood. I thought he’d make a good stand-in for Afon, under the circumstances. ”
As the king spoke the last, a wet, choking sound filled the air. It carried on for a minute as the unfortunate Tavian died, his hands held fast by the manacles that kept him spread-eagled over the altar.
“Blood for blood,” the Priest repeated. “May your queen be triumphant in her battle.”
“Yes,” Orden said. “That’s precisely what I was thinking. You always know the right words, little brother. I’ll send a runner down once the child arrives, and you can begin arrangements for the naming ceremony. Not until after the birth, though—best not to tempt fate.”
The Priest nodded as if being informed was a kindness. As if he did not maintain his own eyes and ears in every part of the castle and wouldn’t hear of anything that occurred as soon as Orden himself did.
“I’m yours to command,” the Priest said graciously, bowing his head in obedience.
“You’re still magnificent,” Orden shot over one shoulder as he moved to Mortis’s altar.
“Always will be to me. Well then, Hadrian, don’t you think the gods might refuse your requests out of annoyance because you make your prayers so long?
Better a quick gout of blood and a single petition than a litany of all your wants and concerns. You’ll bore them to distraction.”
“Perhaps Your Majesty is right,” Hadrian said without ire. “There is another matter I would appreciate your insight on, as well. You know at Shrike’s Edge we’ve levied a wood lot tax…”
The Priest wondered how long it would be before Hadrian requested that his son be recalled from the Vesperin front to serve in the new war against Caervallion, instead.
The fighting in Vesper was particularly brutal, given the Vesperin bent for invention and innovation, and the Priest did not think Hadrian’s commitment to tradition would preclude a little nepotism.
King and statesman left together, Hadrian speaking with deference of his provincial troubles, Orden listening with interest. With the sacrifice complete, Orden had put any regret over his slain guard aside, and with Hadrian nattering at him, he’d lost any care for the impending council and Afon’s arrival.
It had always been so with Honoria’s king—his moods shifted faster than a weathervane turned in spring.
The Priest waited until the last footsteps faded away. Then he set out in the opposite direction, heading for the far-distant cavern wall into which his chambers had been carved.
It was a long walk—though small cells that once belonged to Silith’s sorias pockmarked all the nearest walls of the cave, the Priest had chosen the one that lay farthest from the altar rise, deep in the mountain’s heart.
He went barefoot through the cavern, as the sorias had done before him, and it was easy to find his way in the vast, echoing space—years back, the Priest had bound a length of thick, braided wire to the foot of one of the altars, and it ran along the ground from there to an iron spike embedded in the rock beside his chamber door.
He needed the cool, quiet walk today. The time spent in silent contemplation. Both Orden’s visit and the knowledge that the queen was on her birthing bed had left him tense and frustrated, longing for something or someone to lash out at, as he might have done during his youngest years.
But if there was one thing the Priest had learned from surviving the Inver nursery and Orden’s rise to power, it was circumspection.
The ability to watch and wait and keep his true thoughts and feelings hidden at all times.
So he balled his hands into fists and carried on through the dark, trying to forget the way the queen’s voice had broken when she first told him of the coming child, and the way Orden’s trust twisted inside him like a knife.
Too soon, the brush of wire against his bare ankle became sudden iron.
Reaching out, the Priest felt for a patch of low-growing fungus that hugged the rocky sides of the doorway.
It was a peculiar plant, turncoat’s mushroom—if exposed to light or touch, bitter compounds flooded it within minutes and lingered for hours, rendering it unappetizing to whatever might dwell in the lightless depths of caves such as this.
Breaking off the smallest possible piece, the Priest put it to his lips.
Bitter as regret.
Frowning, he reached for the top of the door as well, where he kept a gossamer strand of the near-invisible thread used in weaving crescentcloth.
Gone. And these were the clumsiest of tricks, the most obvious of tells should someone enter his quarters uninvited.
There was certainly someone lurking within, but if it was an assassin—and there had been a few quiet attempts by power-hungry members of the court since the Priest took his place—then it was an inept and unskilled one at best.
Reluctantly, he drew a short, viciously sharp court dagger from its hidden sheath strapped to his upper arm, where it would not be visible when he made his blood offerings.
They called the weapon a pugio—a blade made for nobles and spies.
This wasn’t the sort of game the Priest liked to play anymore, but he’d been forced into the role of cat or mouse often enough that he never went unarmed.
With infinite caution, he slipped through the door.
“Who’s there?” a panicked male voice whispered in Corrinivar. “And why is it so dark?”
Letting out an irritable huff, the Priest returned his dagger to its sheath.