Prisoner of Fate (30 page)

‘
M
rs Merchant,’ said Prince Shadow with feigned charm as he stopped in the entry hall. ‘What a pleasant surprise to see you in the palace.’ Crystal smiled and bowed in the customary manner of men rather than the curtsey expected of Kerwyn women. ‘Ah,’ Prince Shadow sighed, ‘always the subtle diplomat. So why are you here? I don’t remember a meeting? Have I forgotten?’ he asked, looking inquiringly at his five attendants.

Crystal replied in the official Kerwyn tongue, ‘No, Your Highness, you haven’t forgotten anything. I’m meeting with your brother this morning.’

‘Oh? And which one is that?’

‘Prince Lastchild,’ she replied, still smiling.

‘Lastchild? What business could an important person such as you have with my most undeserving of brothers?’

‘It’s a small matter,’ Crystal said dismissively.

‘It’s always been a small matter with my brother Lastchild,’ Shadow remarked, grinning salaciously. ‘You’ll get very little service from him.’ The attendants chuckled quietly at their lord’s witticism.

‘His service will satisfy my needs this morning,’ she bantered in kind with a false smile, and then changed
her expression and said, ‘I’m surprised that a servant of Jarudha would play smutty word games.’

Prince Shadow grinned and bowed. ‘Well answered, Mrs Merchant, well answered. I always enjoy our little discussions.’ He straightened and added, ‘But I do want to meet with you very soon on a common business matter.’

‘I’m at your service,’ Crystal answered. ‘When best suits you?’

‘I’ll send a message this afternoon with the appropriate details. Enjoy your visit with my brother.’ With that, Shadow and his entourage continued towards the palace entrance.

Crystal waited patiently in an atrium to the side of the palace Great Hall, watching multicoloured parrots flitting through the imported Kerwyn trees. Within the white stone walls, the princes lived in a fantasy world designed by Kerwyn artists and artisans to replicate the landscapes of the northern hills and mountainscapes. Tapestries and paintings of wild high country and stuffed corpses of bears and mountain cats adorned the walls and hallway. Crystal cursorily studied the macabre display and quietly sighed. The encounter with Prince Shadow was unfortunate. Her failure to successfully deliver the most recent euphoria shipment had soured their relationship and was undoubtedly his reason for calling her to a meeting. The thief’s tale of what her grandfather believed about Prince Shadow’s intentions made her more wary of the man than she previously had been—though, in truth, she had never trusted him in their dealings. She couldn’t trust anyone. In fact, she had decided not to bring the mysterious canvas bag to the princes until she was certain it would reach Prince Inheritor.

‘Mrs Merchant?’ Crystal turned to a pageboy in red Kerwyn livery. Dark-haired, his unbroken voice
betrayed his adolescence as he announced, ‘His Highness, Prince Lastchild, will see you now.’

The boy led her across the Great Hall, past its towering eight pillars of green marble mined in a distant land called Ashua and shipped to Port of Joy by Ironfist, grandfather to the princes, who led the invasion of the old Western Shess kingdom. The imported marble was inlaid with carvings of intricately detailed dragons, creatures of myth and legend like the Demon Horsemen. It seemed that the inhabitants of the old Ashuak Empire had worshipped the winged serpentine beasts. It was just as well dragons did not exist, she decided. The page halted at a doorway and bowed to a guard. ‘His Highness is waiting within,’ the boy informed her, and smiled charmingly. Crystal patted the page’s shoulder as she passed the guard and entered the chamber.

‘Mrs Merchant! What a delight!’ Lastchild cried as she entered. Standing at a round table, picking purple grapes from a red bowl, Lastchild had a youthful, shaven countenance and he was slight in build and not overly tall. Crystal considered him moderately handsome, although his features gave her the impression of being blurred, as if they hadn’t fully formed. ‘Would you like some?’ he offered, holding up a bunch of grapes.

‘Thank you, but no,’ she refused politely.

‘Come over to the big chairs and take a seat,’ the prince invited as he headed for the three high-backed and padded red chairs clustered around a low, oval table in a corner of the room beside a large, multipaned window. Lastchild waited for Crystal to sit, before saying, ‘Your letter intrigued my brother, Mrs Merchant. Unfortunately, affairs of state are keeping him busy today, especially with Father having just been laid to rest. I hope you don’t mind seeing me instead.’

‘Not at all,’ she replied, reassuringly.

‘Drink?’ the prince offered.

‘No, thank you, Your Highness.’

‘Straight to the matter then,’ Lastchild said with a chuckle. ‘Your reputation as a shrewd businesswoman is well-known and respected. My brother, Shadow, speaks very highly of you.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied, tiring of Lastchild’s protocol.

‘So why the expediency?’

Crystal sat upright in her chair, studied the honesty in the young prince’s face, and said, ‘Have you heard of the Demon Horsemen?’

Lastchild’s eyebrows rose and a quizzical expression melted across his face. ‘Yes, Mrs Merchant, I have. Why?’

‘What do you know of them?’

He shrugged, his smile fading. ‘Is this what you’ve come so urgently to discuss?’

‘What do you know of them?’ she repeated calmly, as she continued to carefully assess the prince’s responses.

‘If you spoke to Shadow, you would be told that they are the wrath and purifying power of Jarudha, but my brother’s religious fanaticism is fascinatingly—um—perhaps just fascinating will do.’

‘So you don’t believe in the Jarudhan apocalypse?’

Lastchild’s expression hardened. ‘Mrs Merchant, with respect, my personal religious beliefs are my personal matter.’

She nodded and apologetically said, ‘I was not prying, Your Highness. I just need to know what you know.’

The prince smiled again. ‘Our nanny told us many stories about the Demon Horsemen. She was a Shessian woman so I think we suffered like all
Shessian children, being told that they would come and carry us away to the hells if we were bad children. It was a good lesson for Kerwyn children like us, don’t you think?’ Crystal laughed politely. ‘But you have a more serious reason, don’t you?’ he asked, his demeanour changing again.

Crystal swallowed, knowing that she was taking a calculated risk in trusting the young prince, and replied, ‘I’m here because I’ve been led to believe that there’s a plot to usurp your brother.’

‘Oh?’ Lastchild gasped. ‘I take it you mean whoever becomes king?’

‘You don’t know yet?’

He shook his head. ‘Of course it will be Inheritor,’ he said, ‘but there’s been no official proclamation, not even among us. But who is behind this plot?’

Crystal was on uncertain ground. Naming Shadow to his brother seemed too risky, even though she felt that Lastchild had personal integrity—an attribute that would make him a good leader and fallible to the machinations of the greedy and manipulative people who surrounded him. ‘I don’t know exactly who is behind the plot,’ she said quietly, ‘but I do know it has something to do with the Seers of Jarudha.’

Lastchild sat back with a sigh and laughed. ‘Oh, are you serious, Mrs Merchant?’ he asked, still chuckling. ‘The Seers? Plotting against us?’

Surprised by his relaxed response, she asked, ‘Why would you find that absurd?’

‘Forgive me for being forthright, but you must know Shadow oversees the Seers and everything they do?’ He leaned forward as if he was expecting an answer.

‘Yes. Everyone knows that.’

‘Then what’s there to fear? The Seers do whatever we decide and Shadow makes certain they carry it out,’ he asserted. ‘They are our servants.’

‘Do you know that the Seers are trying to raise the Demon Horsemen?’ she challenged.

He stared at her, bemused. ‘To what end?’

‘You don’t know the prophecies?’

‘Prophecies?’ he snorted. ‘Mrs Merchant, they are
not
prophecies. They are tales we tell children and simple-minded peasants to keep them amused and a little scared. They belong to religious prayers to keep the poor well-behaved.’

‘What about the Demon Horsemen coming to serve the One True King?’ she asked.

He shrugged dismissively. ‘Jarudhan nonsense. How many barbarian kings thought they were the One True King? My grandfather thought that he was the One True King. Jarudha didn’t help a single one of them. The Demon Horsemen didn’t come.’

‘But what if the Seers believe the One True King is finally here?’

‘Then Inheritor, when he is named, will be specially treated like every king before him,’ he sardonically replied.

‘What if one of your brothers wants to be king instead of Inheritor?’

Lastchild raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you suggesting, Mrs Merchant?’

‘I’m suggesting, with respect, that kingship is like business. There are competitors and not all of them play by the rules.’

Lastchild stared at her silently, his face locked in a blank expression, but Crystal knew that she had made an error. He rose from his chair, saying, ‘I’m afraid you’ve indecorously stepped across the boundary of delicate discussion, Mrs Merchant. Was there anything else that you wished to raise?’

She also stood and bowed her head slightly. ‘No, Your Highness.’

‘Then I’ll trust you to find your way out with the help of my page.’

Crystal smiled at Lastchild, deciding that at least one prince other than Shadow favoured the concept of fratricide. She met the page at the door and followed the boy to the palace exit.

As she walked along the polished marble tiles of the hallway, she pondered what she had observed in this encounter. First, she was concerned that she had misjudged the young prince. Normally, she was an excellent judge of character. Perhaps she was making the same arrogant mistake as her husband and father—trusting people on intuition and not on what they actually did. She needed to readjust her approach to people. The burning questions were whether or not Shadow already had his younger brother’s support in his scheme, or whether Lastchild had his own set of ambitions for the future monarchy. At least she hadn’t revealed the existence of the strange canvas bag or how she had come by the knowledge of Shadow’s plot. Neither had she directly implicated Shadow, although she ran the risk of Lastchild seeing her as an informer and therefore as a danger to anyone aspiring to the throne. What she
had
ascertained was that Lastchild wasn’t a prince to whom her grandfather’s odd gift should be passed, according to what the thief had told her. She had to deal directly with Prince Inheritor.

She thanked the page who held the door open and paused on the palace steps, gazing up at the cloudstreaked sky. Warmer weather was coming, the season of Wahim moving into the cycle of Ejasot. She would send another flotilla west to the Fallen Star islands to bring more of the euphoria harvest to the city. The impending meeting with Shadow would ratify that new agreement in the wake of the failed agreement. If Shadow was successful in his bid to usurp Inheritor, he
would be the king and he would be her most valuable customer.
It is important to keep all doors open
, she considered, remembering another of her father’s maxims for business. This fool’s errand, set in train by the thief because she trusted him, was potentially ruinous if people misunderstood her intentions.

A bell sounded in the Northern Quarter and she remembered why she had seen so many of the Jarudhan faithful on the move through the city the previous evening. It wasn’t just that the Kerwyn king was dead. With the closing of the cycle of Tayooh, it was also time for the Alunsnight celebrations. The people were preparing the temples for the night of eating and prayer used to commemorate the birth of Jarudha’s son, Alun. She detested religion, but her father took her to the temples for the celebrations when she was a child. ‘You have to know the people well,’ he told her. ‘They are your customers and you have to be aware of their needs and their desires. If you lose touch with them you will lose your business.’
I need to set my business right
, she thought as she descended the steps onto the parade ground.
I need to re-prioritise my life.

As her foot touched the ground at the base of the steps, the palace gates swung open and three horses galloped through, heading towards her. She stopped. The riders reined in, one dismounted in fluid motion and raced up the palace steps, the guards standing aside to let the soldier enter, while his companions remained on their horses. Curious, Crystal looked up at the nearest, a young Kerwyn cavalry officer by his red livery and badges of office, and asked in Kerwyn, ‘What is happening?’ Her question was punctuated by a distant boom of heavy thundermakers.

‘Three foreign ships are entering the harbour,’ the cavalry officer replied.

‘Foreign?’ she quizzed. ‘Where from?’ The cavalry officer shrugged. ‘Do they have an ensign?’ Crystal asked.

The young man glanced at his companion before he replied, ‘A white ensign with a black dragon.’

She knew the ensign. ‘Ranu ships,’ she said. ‘Traders. That isn’t anything special.’

The cavalry officer glanced at his companion again and at the entrance to the palace. Drawing a breath, he said, ‘These aren’t ordinary ships.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘Go down and see for yourself,’ he said curtly, and he averted his eyes to end her queries. Crystal waited for the young man to explain, but when he held his silence she walked towards the gates, wondering why three foreign trading ships would cause a stir among the Kerwyn military.

‘
W
hat did Mrs Merchant want?’

The question hung over Lastchild like an accusation and as the young prince looked up at his taller brother to reply he noted the diplomatic smile on Shadow’s lips. ‘I think the woman has found religion.’

Shadow’s brow knitted. ‘She came here to tell
you
that?’

‘It was a little more simplistic,’ Lastchild replied. He crossed the War Room of the palace to the big windows and stared down into the manicured courtyard. ‘She wanted to know about the Demon Horsemen.’

The bald statement made Shadow hesitate before asking, ‘Why?’

Lastchild turned to his brother and said, ‘Apparently, Mrs Merchant has contacts who have reliably informed her that one or more of us are plotting to kill Inheritor.’

‘Ridiculous!’ Shadow spat. ‘I could have her executed for that!’

Lastchild walked towards Shadow. ‘She has too many pretensions because of her wealth and position in the city. Removing her is not a silly proposition.’

‘Did she say who she suspected?’ Shadow asked.

Lastchild halted before him. ‘No.’

‘Clues?’

‘Only the reference to the Demon Horsemen,’ Lastchild replied, and gave his brother the same diplomatic smile that he’d received at the opening of the conversation. ‘I’m heading up to the tower to look at these strange Ranu ships again. Coming?’

‘Later,’ Shadow replied. Lastchild nodded knowingly and left the room.

Alone, Shadow stood at the long table with the map of the world painted on its surface. At the centre was the Kerwyn kingdom, spreading from the northern mountains where his ancestors originated to the southern coast that were once tribal lands. From the west coast to the eastern mountains the Kerwyn were masters of their destinies, but across the western ocean the lands north and south were painted white, signifying the spread throughout the past twenty years of the Ranu Empire. The Ranu had always traded with the Kerwyn, at least for as long as Shadow knew. Their ships used to be fast sailing traders, low-slung, susceptible to the rough ocean weather, the sailors hardy and brave. In recent years, they arrived in the dragon ships built by the Andrak because the Andrak nation had succumbed to the expanding Ranu empire. Now, the Ranu were in the harbour of Port of Joy in ships unlike anything Shadow had ever laid eyes on, and their ambassadors were demanding a meeting with the Kerwyn king.
Except we don’t have one at the moment
, he mused.

He moved from the table to the window, standing where his brother had stood, and watched two gardeners trimming the low hedge bordering a blue wildflower bed. Mrs Merchant was becoming a bigger problem than he had expected. The Seers were keen to have her monopoly on the euphoria trade broken so that they could employ a cheaper operator to supply their needs. He had
engineered one shipping accident to give him leverage to negotiate a cheaper price and arranged for her shipmaster to meet his fate in a tavern brawl, so she should be primed for negotiating a better deal, especially as she could no longer guarantee supply. He had to convince the Seers that retaining her services at a cheaper or more palatable rate was smarter than employing someone else. After all, she knew her business, she had all the equipment, trade contacts and people to operate effectively, and she was an attractive woman. The question was how to do it.

Now, though, there was a much larger issue, one of greater threat to the Seers than any in many years. According to Word, if the ancient secret locked inside a canvas bag that Mrs Merchant apparently had obtained was to land in the wrong hands, all hope of a sinless future, all hope of Paradise in Jarudha’s glorious light, would be lost. The artefact had to be recovered—at all costs. The trick was how to do it. Mrs Merchant’s home was guarded and difficult to search thoroughly because of the tunnel maze beneath it.

His thoughts were interrupted by movement in the sky. Gazing through the window he saw, drifting below the clouds, barely visible against them because of its white material, an airbird unlike any in the kingdom. It was elongated, nearly five times the size of a normal airbird. Directly beneath its body was an enclosed carriage that looked as if it could carry a hundred passengers, and the vehicle was driven through the air by six spinning windwheels mounted at the side and rear of the passenger carriage. Along its white fabric length was emblazoned a black dragon, the Ranu symbol, and Prince Shadow pondered the magic the Ranu people had that enabled them to build and fly in a gigantic airbird.
From her balcony overlooking the bay, Crystal stared at the three anchored Ranu ships and understood why they were causing consternation at the palace. The strangest vessels she had ever seen, they were bulky, grey, made of iron or a similar metal and lacking sails. Each had a strange squat cylinder poking from the stern deck and a huge wheel at the stern immersed in the water. They were as dissimilar in design to the traditional ocean-going vessels with which Crystal was familiar as a kangaroo to a dolphin. Their physics were utterly wrong. Metal couldn’t float on water. Without sails or paddles, how did they travel? It was possible the massive wheel at the stern was driven by slaves inside the hull, like the infamous Andrak dragon ships—ships that, curiously, had disappeared in recent months—but the vessel was too large and obviously too heavy. Each Ranu ship was ten times the size of a Kerwyn sailing ship and holes along the hull bristled with the dark mouths of giant thundermakers. Their enormity was incomprehensible.

‘What do you think this means?’ Lin asked as she stood beside Crystal.

Crystal put an arm around her companion’s waist, but her gaze remained fixed on the ships as she quietly replied, ‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m guessing that the war in the west is over,’ said Lin. ‘The Ranu have been expanding their nation for years. Perhaps they’ve come to re-establish the trade routes.’

Crystal shook her head. ‘Those things aren’t trading ships. There’s something sinister about them.’ Then she fell silent and her silence attracted Lin’s attention.

‘What is the matter?’

‘Look,’ Crystal urged. The women stood on the balcony and watched white fabric billowing on the deck of one grey ship steadily take shape until it became elongated and rose into the air, guide ropes steadying it
above the ship. The ropes dropped away and the dragon egg gained height, rising above the city and the cliffs until it sat below the clouds and headed inland.

‘The Ranu ambassadors want an audience with our king,’ the young messenger explained to the assembled princes in the palace throne room. ‘They say they will remain until the king is ready to receive them.’

Prince Inheritor dismissed the messenger, and waited for the throne room door to close before he said dourly, ‘We have a problem.’

‘There’s no problem,’ Shadow answered. ‘You will be installed as the king within a few days so you’d better start acting like one.’

Inheritor met Shadow’s cool gaze, and then gazed in turn at Gift and Lastchild and sighed. ‘If River and Thirdson were here—’

‘But they’re not,’ Shadow cut in. ‘We are. And
you
are our father’s eldest. I know what our gracious mother has already told you. We all do. You
will
be king. Let’s stop playing protocol and get on with it. These ambassadors need to be seen by the king and that’s you, my brother.’ He looked at Gift and Lastchild, asking, ‘Agreed?’ They nodded. ‘See?’ he said to Inheritor with a smile. ‘That’s how decisions are made. You will learn to make decisions just like that.’

Inheritor’s expression remained serious as he said, ‘Whatever these ambassadors want, you will all be present and we’ll discuss their information together after they have gone. I will be a brother first and a king second. I am not like our father, or our grandfather.’

Shadow snorted and shook his head. ‘Grandfather would have killed you if you were his brother,’ he said and laughed, and Gift and Lastchild laughed with him. ‘When you’re the king, you do whatever you want.’

‘What do you suspect these ambassadors have to say?’
Lastchild asked. ‘They’ve made a show of strength with their ships and airbirds. Are they threatening to invade?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Inheritor. ‘And I don’t think we should guess anything. Let’s listen to them first.’

‘Then you’d better sit on the throne, brother,’ Shadow advised. ‘A king must be higher than anyone else.’

His Eminence, Seer Scripture, was livid. Not only had the presumptuous Inheritor dared to sit on the throne without an official blessing from Jarudha’s high priest but he had held counsel with the Ranu ambassadors without even considering to invite the Seers to attend. ‘Who does Inheritor think he is?’ he growled, glaring at Word, Law and Paradise. ‘I thought he might have at least respected his father and asked you to be there,’ he said, focussing on Law. ‘Hawkeye never held counsel without consulting you.’

‘Inheritor is not like his father,’ Law countered. ‘He does not have the faith.’

‘Which is exactly why he
cannot
be the king!’ Scripture bellowed. ‘What right does his stepmother think she has in all this? She’s a woman. There’s no place for women in choosing the king. It led to the fall of the Shessian dynasty. Sunset was a disaster. Jarudha does not place women above men!’

‘I believe his brothers accept that he is the eldest and therefore the rightful heir,’ said Word.

‘Who told you this?’ Scripture asked.

Word looked at Law and Paradise before replying, ‘Prince Shadow, Your Eminence. With the Ranu ambassadors demanding to speak only to the king, Inheritor’s accedence was diplomatically expedient.’

‘Shadow? He countenanced this travesty?’

‘Yes, Your Eminence, he did.’

Scripture glared at Word, before turning on his heels and marching to the end of the meeting table. He made
the holy sign of the circle, sat and exhaled heavily. ‘He would not have done that without carefully considering his actions,’ he said with greater calm. ‘What are his plans?’

Word drew a deep breath and replied, ‘His plans as we know them remain unchanged. When the moment is right, he will become king as we had hoped and planned. Inheritor is—a weak man, an ungodly man. He will quickly lose the popularity of the people by his actions. Shadow says it is only a matter of a short time and his brother will not be the king.’

‘Shadow is a disciple of Jarudha in every sense. He knows that he is crucial to our establishing Paradise,’ Scripture argued.

‘He will not fail us,’ Word reassured him. ‘Jarudha has him in His hands. Shadow is the One True King we have waited for. He will provide the key to the calling of the Demon Horsemen.’

Scripture stared unblinking. ‘And what of the other matters?’

‘Being taken care of, Your Eminence. Jarudha’s faithful are hunting down the heretics and ill-favoured as we speak.’

‘Creator has found a way to refine the euphoria,’ Seer Paradise quietly offered.

The Seers turned to him. ‘Explain,’ Scripture instructed.

Paradise wrung his hands as he talked. ‘To make the Conduit for the Demon Horsemen, Creator needs greater potency. We know that we can never open the gates alone, that it will take all of us to be channelling our Blessings through the euphoria medium. But even that, Creator thinks, will not be enough. He says that we need to gather all of the faithful in the city in one place and channel their energies through our Blessings to generate the power needed to call the Demon
Horsemen. And to channel their energies we need to be more potent than they are. Creator has found a way to make the euphoria we take more potent.’

‘Has he tried it yet?’ Word asked.

Paradise shook his head. ‘He will wait until Your Eminence can witness what is possible. He calls the refined euphoria “enlightenment”.’

Scripture nodded, smiling wryly. ‘An appropriate name,’ he said. ‘Creator is one of Jarudha’s gifts to us all. May he long be blessed.’